Style Guide vs. Mood Board: Unpacking the Differences (2024)

FAQs

Style Guide vs. Mood Board: Unpacking the Differences? ›

In essence, while a style guide is the concrete set of rules that govern your brand's identity, a mood board is the abstract foundation that inspires it. Together, they contribute to a comprehensive visual strategy that keeps your brand's appeal consistent, fresh, and engaging.

Mood Board vs Style Guide: The Differences

Mood boards create a frame of what the design intends to put forward. Style Guides establish a way to achieve that particular design ideology. To put it in a simpler way, mood boards depict the proposed outcomes of a design process.

Moodboards tend to be a collection of inspirational images, whereas a stylescape takes the images from our moodboards and alters them to fit the brand's proposed identity. They are often long and rectangular, providing an overview of the brand's new image.

⛓️ The difference between a moodboard and a fashion lookbook

Fashion lookbooks - These are more visually appealing, are built on a simple background or white background, and are an organized collection of the key concepts from the moodboard.

The mood board will be a great guide to work alongside in this stage, to help you stay focused on your goal for the space. While the design board will help you see how the actual items are fitting together visually.

Mood boards generally just scratch the surface of what your animation is going to look like while style frames are where you actually start designing your animation elements. At VMG Studios, we typically deliver two unique style frame designs to a client based on feedback from the mood boards.

A mood board uses images, a sample board concentrates on materials and color. A sample board describes a content and sticks to the facts whereas a mood board expresses the context representing an atmosphere.

There are two types of ad mood boards: digital or physical. It's completely up to you and your working style to choose the one that best fits your marketing campaigns.

Purpose of a Mood Board

Mood boards can serve many purposes, starting with organizing the inspiration around a project. They can be a valuable resource throughout the design project, to help keep the style and aesthetic consistent and on track with a client's goals and expectations.

Unlike storyboards, mood boards are non-linear and focus on creating a sensory experience rather than telling a story. They're handy for graphic designers, brand strategists, and interior designers who use them to convey the essence of a brand, design, or space.

What is style mood board? ›

In short a style mood-board is a collection of images that encapsulate your overall style in a quick, easy and digestible way (which is just how we work – to make your style life simpler)

A vision board relates to your life direction, says Larry. A mood board, on the other hand, is more of a planning tool used for aesthetics—decorating a room or planning a party scheme, for example.

Mood Board vs Concept Board

You might use both these terms interchangeably. But there's a significant difference between a mood board and concept board. A mood board conveys the general feeling that you get about a design idea. However, a concept board provides the stimuli or inspiration to start the creative work.

In essence, while a style guide is the concrete set of rules that govern your brand's identity, a mood board is the abstract foundation that inspires it. Together, they contribute to a comprehensive visual strategy that keeps your brand's appeal consistent, fresh, and engaging.

“With a style tile we ensure that we do not base our choices on taste, but on user needs and business goals.” Mood boards are too vague and mock-ups too specific. A style tile provides the right balance.

Moodboards lack realism. By piecing together static images from different sources, the interior designer is unable to bring all of the elements together to make the space feel realistic. Continuity can be a problem and cause the customer's imagination to run wild.

Sometimes called inspiration boards, mood boards can be used for creating brand designs, product designs, website designs, and pretty much any other type of design project.