One place I regularly visit to watch learning videos is www.lynda.com. It is this great resource that I recommend anyone who wants to learn about web design, programming, art, eBay, etc use. It provides a wide range of information. Its $25ish a month, but totally worth it to have all the information you could ever image at your fingertips. 😮 I actually used a Lynda video to help me create this website. When I was going through the video I came across a new concept (to me) called a “mood board.” It may not be new to you, but it intrigued me and I felt offended that I had never heard this word during my time in school. How could this great concept not have been introduced to us? Did my professors realize they were cheating me from this great tool? Probably not. But at least I learned it now and can use this tool whenever I create a new website or graphic.
Here is a brief description of what a mood board is in my own words. It is a poster design (or for me a PhotoShop design) that included images, text, texture, colors, etc to develop my website. In my situation I had to think of colors, text, and images that I like and I just put samples in my PhotoShop file. It was more fun that you think. Especially since this was all about me; and who knows more about me then me? It also was challenging too to figure out where to start and what exactly I wanted to include. Remember your website needs to look professional too. Here is an example of my mood board:
It’s nothing fancy, but helped me create a mock up for the site. At first I wasn’t sure what to look for. I know I like flowers and vines and started there. That is how I came across the picture of the flowers in the top left. But they were originally brown and red. WHAT?! Yup. 😉 What I did was change the layer style from normal to difference and it made it blue. Huh isn’t that neat? My favorite color is blue too which made it even better. I was also into a big faerie faze (incase you can’t tell :-p ) so I wanted to include that. I like the colors that are used on the book cover (dark and different shades from blue to purple). My search for faeries was open ended and I just picked a few. The one with the little faeries on the branches staring at the moon intrigued me because of the moon being big and bright, plus the clouds around it. I also like Paris, France. I have always wanted to visit there, and one day I will. Whether I am 30 or 90. Usually when looking up France the Eiffel Tower comes up a lot, so of course pictures of that are expected. I also like the look of paintings/pictures of cafes, bakeries, etc in Paris. The letters and colors always fascinate me. Font is the hardest for me to work with. I never know what font to use. What can and can’t I use on the web? What fonts do you use commonly on websites? Or see on websites? I wanted a cool font that was easily readable. In the end I ended up just sticking with Georgia (always good to fall back on), but maybe in a future revision I will play around with fonts more.
That is it when it comes to the mood board. Now if you are going to work with a client they will provide you with a color scheme (sometimes), images (probably their logo), fonts, etc that they like. This hopefully will make the mood board even easier. You have the colors to work with and the images that they provide. Don’t forget to do your research and include similar colors/images to make it more unique and not just what they provided you.
NOTE: Don’t think you have to use a piece of all the images/colors in your mood board. I didn’t use half of the stuff I included. Really I think I only used part of two. Can you guess what parts? The best part though, is that I have gone back a bunch of times since the completion of my site and looked at my mood board for inspiration. Whether it’s to change the color, change the font, or find a way to incorporate something else, it will still come in handy. So make sure you keep all your mood boards. Maybe a mood board you created for one client doesn’t work, but another one you created you really like the colors you have, and BAM! that is what you use for the next project.
Have fun with it. Play around and don’t take it too seriously. This is also a good experience to help you learn more about yourself and your design styles.
Happy mood boarding! 🙂
Megan