Getting In The Mood(board)

If you love being visually creative or are just interested to find out more, I’ll show you some examples of my moodboards and give you some quick tips (and a free template) to start making your own. 

‘Now that I’m a parent, I understand why my father was in a bad mood a lot.’
Adam Sandler

My Quest
I love creating mood boards for my Designerting adventures in life and work. When creating graphics, they help build the clarity needed to dive into idea development with confidence. At home, they help communicate renovation ideas (in a seemingly less dictatorial way) to the family, and also work as vision boards to keep motivation up as pennies are saved for various quests (I prefer ‘quests’ to ‘goals’, it just sounds like so much more fun). I’d love it if my free template could help you with your quests (and save you being surrounded by 1000s of magazine cuttings, inexplicably with glue in your hair).

Less Moaning More Momentum
My design process is broken down into 7 manageable chunks (read more here), I call my second step ‘Discovery Time’. I start this by creating moodboards as a creative diving board to help me plunge into a worked up sketch (illustration) or visual concept (graphic design). Reading can be quite exhausting for me (dyslexia, sigh), so I like to convert the brief into a visual feeling with a moodboard. This is a great way to get over the first hurdle of my paralysing fear of failure! No matter how many projects I do and how great the feedback is, I always believe I’m not good enough to do a project just before I start. The moodboard process helps me quit my moaning and get a bit of momentum going.

When am I ever going to use a moodboard?
You can use a moodboard to communicate your vision for any project, in one place, with a simple collection of lovely visual materials. Keep referring to it through your project so that your key themes are front and centre while you create.

Some great project examples are:

• Home makeovers
• Big Crafts
• Vision Boards
• Business Branding
• Revamping your wardrobe
• Kid’s Party theme
• Wedding Planning

The First Step – Be A Magpie
Like a little creative Magpie, I fly away to gather images that spark inspiration and research the subject matter. This becomes the foundation of my creative experiments from which different approaches and outcomes are born. Pinterest, Google, Shutterstock, having a walk and taking pictures of nice textures/colours are a few of the ways I collect my ‘shiny objects’ for my mood nest.

I produce my boards digitally so I have the whole internet at my disposal, rather than using a stack of old magazines that I quite frankly don’t have the space for. Plus, digitally, I don’t need to get sticky glue-fingers or worry about the backdraft from a destructive dog tail wag wiping out the images I’ve already placed. Genius!

If you get any moments of specific inspiration along the way, write them down straight away so you don’t lose them to the ether, but leave them be, as your next flash of brilliance could be the one.

Distil Your Dreams
I use Adobe Express to create my boards, the basic version of which is free to use and is a great online platform, built by the graphic arts power house. I could have used Canva, but I find Express is more intuitive, has better functionality, and works with my other Adobe software really well. It just feels more professional to me (although I may be being a design snob there). You can just as easily use Word, Powerpoint or One Note if you feel more comfortable.

Here are my top 10 Moodboard Do’s and Don’ts below: 

Do . . .

• have fun!
• use a variety of elements e.g. photos, illustrations, and textures
• use negative space (leave white space/gaps as this helps to create contrast, balance, and visual interest)
• include a peppering of meaningful key words if you fancy
• include a colour swatch palette (you can pick these colours from your images)

Don’t . . .

• try and make it perfect
• spend too long on it (this is inspiration for the project, not the actual project)
• have too many images in there (5-15 is great)
• use pixelated poor-quality images (this will make the design gods sad)
• include anything that you don’t love. If you’re not sure why you saved it, delete it.

My Magical Mood
Above is my moodboard for the publicity design of Rodger’s & Hammerstein’s Cinderella. I included 15 images and some additional atmospheric and textural elements (who doesn’t love a bit of fake tape?). It’s probably a bit too busy, but it actually gave me a heads up of what would and wouldn’t work graphically and colour wise. The chosen image and title treatment are below.

Now Go Have Fun!
I’ve designed a simplified version and made it available for you for FREE as a jumping off point. You can use it for any project you have in mind. Even if you don’t have an upcoming project, maybe you can make yourself a vision board of a quest (goal) you’re working towards.

A Quick Guide to Using Your Moodboard Template
Click the link in Freebees below (or here) and you’ll be guided through how to get access to your FREE template. Then follow my step by step guide below, or watch the video tutorial and have a whistle stop tour on how to use your template in Adobe Express, in real time. Adobe express is browser based so the guide works for PC or Mac.

Opening Your Template

1. Paste your free link into the address bar of your browser (this brings up the template in Adobe Express).
2. Sign up for a FREE account so you can edit the template or log in if you have Adobe Creative Cloud (you may have to click re-mix in the top right corner, if it gives you the option).
3. Follow the video or text instructions below

Replacing the Images with Your Own

1. Single click on the image you would like to replace.
2. Click the replace symbol that appears above the image,
   or in the left hand menu bar .
3. Select ‘upload from device’ and choose your image from your files,
   or choose a free image option available in Adobe Express.
4. Your image will replace the one in the template you have selected.

Changing the Crop of the Image

1. Double click on the image you want to adjust.
2. Use the corners of the full image (which is now showing to ‘pull out’ and resize the image) or click, hold and drag the image to move it around in the cropped area.

Editing Text

1. Double click on the text you want to update.
2. Delete and replace with the text you want.
3. Change the typeface in the left menu panel.

Changing the Colour of Shapes

1. Click on the shape (not a photo) you want to change the colour of.
2. Click on the box below ‘Fill’ in the left panel and pick a colour you would like to use (the swatches tab will give you more variety than the suggested palettes and you can put in a specific hex code if you like).
3. If you want to pick a colour from an image in your moodboard go to the eyedropper symbol at the top of the pop up tab.
4. Move your cursor to the colour you want to press, and click (the ‘fill’ box and your shape will now change to that colour.

Moving Assets

1. Click on the object.
2. Click and drag to where you want it to go.

Saving Your Finished Moodboard to Your Computer

1. In the top Adobe Express menu bar on the right hand side is a ‘Download’ button.
2. Click the download button.
3. Click on the file format dropdown to select the file format you want (.png, .jpg, .pdf).
4. Click ‘Download’.
5. The file will shortly be available in your downloads folder on your computer.

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FREEBEES! YAY!

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