The fashion world has lot of concepts and ideas that are all geared towards the promotion of brands. One of these concepts is the fashion mood board. They are often used by fashion brands to convey or display a general feeling about a particular product, topic or theme.
What is a mood board?
A fashion moodboard or (inspiration board) is a collage of images and objects that highlights a specific visual style either in the physical or digital form. Fashion mood boards can include magazine clippings, photographs, colour swatches, fabric swatches and more.
It is used by creative professionals and this includes graphic designers, fashion entrepreneurs, bloggers, photographers and even event planners. It is most important for creatives that work around a particular theme and want to showcase their interests, design elements, textures and colour schemes to their audience.
Before you make your moodboard, one of the important choices you must make is the type of mood board you want to create. There are two types of a mood board:
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Physical Moodboards
are the traditional option of a mood board. For a physical mood board, you collect the designs you want and just lay them out on a foam board. Another way is using a cork pinboard with pins to display your inspiration.
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Digital Moodboards
In the case of a digital mood board, you collect the images you have seen on the internet or your digital pictures in the case of a photographer. After collection, some online platforms help you bring these images together. Some of these platforms include Canva, Pinterest, Milanote.
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Why you need a mood board
A mood board is important for many reasons, but some of them are:
- It is one of the most effective methods of setting the visual direction for your new fashion project.
- With a mood board, you can communicate your ideas quickly without having to start from scratch.
- It helps you as a creative find your inspiration and refine your ideas.
Step-by-Step Guide: Make Your Own Mood board
There are three basic steps to making a mood board:
- Choose your theme: The first step to creating a mood board is choosing a theme of your choice. Your theme must do well to reflect what the mood board is for and what you intend to achieve with it. Do you have an idea in mind? Good! The next thing is to research your ideas and suitable themes for your project. For an interior design project, you may consider a minimalist, tropical or modernist design. The colour (mustard, green, blush pink or forest green) is suitable for your project. However, if you have not gotten an inspiration yet, all you need to do is sit down, brainstorm by going through magazines or mood boards of other creatives.
- Collect your elements: After choosing your perfect theme, the next step is collecting your elements. It is advisable to follow your inspiration in this case and at the same time, make some other findings, so your mood board will reflect your original choices. Also, visiting art galleries, art websites, fashion editorial shoots and architectural designs to get some more inspiration. Another important element is your font. It must reflect your intention, consider old fonts if you are creating a vintage mood board and modern fonts for contemporary designs.
- Review, curate and present your board: This is one of the common issues. After following the first two steps, you probably have more ideas and materials than you need and you need to choose from the list. Curate your theme and materials by choosing images and samples that fit each other, perfect colour and aesthetic balance to reflect the originality of the process.
Moodboard help to communicate your concept and ideas to either a client or your audience. If done properly, it takes you one step higher in your creative journey.
