What is an interior design mood board and material board (2025)

A mood board is a collection of images, materials, and other design elements that represent the look, feel, and emotion you want for your home or office. It can be a great way to get inspired and start putting together the design elements you'll need to achieve the look you're going for.

Mood boards can be created for any interior design project, large or small. They're often used by professional designers to communicate their vision to clients, but anyone can benefit from creating one. They are a great starting point for your design process as they;

  • Give you a visual representation of the look and feel you want for your space.
  • Help you get inspired and come up with new ideas.
  • Communicate your design vision to others.
  • Capture the emotion you want to evoke in your space.
  • Help you put together the design elements you need to achieve your desired look and feel such as color, texture, and pattern

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How to Create an Interior Design Mood Board

Creating interior design material boards is easy. All you need is a vision for your space and some creative materials. Here's how to get started:

1. Define the overall look and feel you want for your space

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What mood do you want to create? Do you want a warm and inviting space, or a cool and modern one? Are you going for a rustic vibe or a sleek and polished look? Knowing what feeling you want to evoke will help you choose the right images and materials for your mood board.

2. Gather inspiration

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Once you know what look you're going for, it's time to start collecting ideas. Look through design magazines, search online for images, and save anything that catches your eye. Don't worry about whether or not the items will actually work in your space; just gather anything and everything that speaks to you. It might be an image of the perfect black countertop or beautiful grey wood floors.

3. Start putting it all together

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Once you have a good selection of images and materials, it's time to start putting your mood board together. You can use a physical board or create one digitally. If you're making a physical material board, glue or tape the items onto the board. If you're creating a digital mood board, you can use design software like Photoshop, a Word document or use a 3D material library with Mattoboard.

4. Add finishing touches

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Once your mood board is complete, take a step back and see if anything is missing. Is there something that would help communicate your vision better? Could you add a Marble sample or Wood samples? If so, add it to your mood board.

5. Use your mood board as a starting point for your design process

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Once you have a complete and cohesive mood board, you can start using it as a guide for putting together the rest of your design. It can help you choose furniture, select paint colors, and find accessories that will help you achieve the look you're going for.

How to create a mood board that will inspire you

Creating a mood board is a great way to get inspired and start putting together the design elements you'll need to achieve the look you're going for. It can be helpful to think about the emotion or feeling you want your space to evoke. Some other things to consider include:

Colors: What mood do you want your space to convey? Bright and cheery? Relaxing and serene? Bold and energetic?

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Textures: Smooth or rough? Shiny or matte? Soft or hard?

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Patterns: Floral, stripes, polka dots, plaid, geometric, etc.

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Materials: Wood, metal, glass, fabric, stone, etc.

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Furniture: What style of furniture do you want? Modern, traditional, country chic, etc.

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Accessories: Artwork, pillows, rugs, lamps, vases, etc.

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Remember, a mood board is just for inspiration - it doesn't have to be perfect! The goal is to get your creative juices flowing so you can start bringing your vision to life.

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Creating Materials boards is the perfect way to start any interior design project. It can help you capture the look, feel and emotion you want for your home or office. Plus, it's a great way to get inspired and come up with ideas for furniture, decor and color schemes. So what are you waiting for? Start creating your own mood board with Mattoboard.

Happy designing!

Mattoboard is a 3D tool for designers. Our drag and drop technology helps you design quickly & experiment endlessly. Stay on trend and use visual storytelling to create mood and material boards.

What is an interior design mood board and material board (2025)

FAQs

What is an interior design mood board and material board? ›

A mood board is essentially a collection of curated images, materials, words and colors used to inspire a creative project. Sometimes called an inspiration board or an interior design mood board, the display can be physical (such as a poster board collage) or virtual (built on a digital platform).

What is the difference between a mood board and a material board? ›

A moodboard (also known as a materialboard) is a canvas, in which our design team has fixed a varied range of sample materials from their design concept that is being developed in the studio.

What is a material board in interior design? ›

Material boards, or flat lays, are one of the tools designers at DP3 Architects use to hone their visual ideas and convey the look and feel of a space to our clients. By definition, a material board is an assemblage of colors, textures, prints, materials, or other design elements that evoke the style of a project.

What is a mood board interior design? ›

A mood board is a collection of images, materials, and other design elements that represent the look, feel, and emotion you want for your home or office. It can be a great way to get inspired and start putting together the design elements you'll need to achieve the look you're going for.

What is the difference between a mood board and a design board? ›

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.

What are the two types of mood board? ›

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.

What are the disadvantages of mood board? ›

The mood board-based approach to design has a lot of drawbacks. It wastes creative energy, it adds to the overall homogenization in design, it can water down a designer's own creative voice, and often, frankly, it results in ripping off other designers' work.

What is the difference between a mood board and a sample board? ›

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.

What is the board called that designers use? ›

A mood board (or inspiration board) is a physical or digital collage of ideas that's commonly used in fields like interior design, fashion, and graphic design.

What is the difference between a moodboard and a theme board? ›

Theme: A consistent visual or conceptual thread that ties elements together. Moodboard: A visual collage that captures the overall aesthetic, tone, and feel intended for a design project.

What is the difference between a mood board and a swatch board? ›

Mood boards are an effective and engaging way to see concepts that will lead to other conversations and evolve the design forward. Swatch boards are very similar to mood boards, but are more geared towards the reality of the space.

What is the difference between a mood board and a trend board? ›

Mood boards are frequently used in the design industries: fashion, interior, graphic, advertising, etc. They are a way of presenting visual representations of concepts to clients. Trend boards are a specific example of mood boards. Trend boards identify a timely trend that we can expect to see in home decor or fashion.

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