As I branch into website art and design, I ponder my processes and how I can make the collaborative client experience more effective.
I often hear the sentence ‘Not sure I know what I want, but I’ll know it when I see it’.
This uncertainty can lead to frustration for the artist and client, as time is spent guessing what the client may want, thus running the risk of unnecessary re-dos and stifling the creative process.
So, I am continually refining my service and helping you become more involved with the process, to develop a deeper understanding of my art/design choices and my craft.
This blog post will introduce you to one element of my art process. The mood board.
What exactly is a mood board?
A mood board is an inspirational collage of images, text, textures and styles for the purpose of focusing the art/design process.
The mood board precedes the mock-up images or design and is introduced after the completion of the questionnaire and Skype session.
Essentially, the mood board captures the atmosphere and helps to organise thoughts, impressions, themes and feelings (Tweetable). They save precious time and minimise misunderstandings.
Images and words are ideally arranged in themes such as colour palette, inspiring words, textures, style and typography. The images can also be scaled to show preferences and the dominant style.
The example I have here is a demo case study website I am designing for a business I am naming Small Steps coaching. Over the coming weeks, I plan to blog about the process from mood board to mock-up website.
I am really looking forward to it.
So, this demo brief is to design a website for a female entrepreneur (let’s call her Daisy) who is a coach specialising in coaching women after a major life event. In essence, to help them start to rebuild their lives in a gentle, nourishing and slow-paced way.
After completing my questionnaire, Skype session and mood board, it is clear that Daisy has certain words that convey the feeling of her business. She also wants an elegant, handwriting typeface to convey an informal friendliness. She loves watercolour art style and after her Pinterest discovery session, she is clear on the colours she would like to use.
This mood board really conveys a soft and natural feeling already, don’t you think? Daisy would like to create a feeling of safety.
I certainly have a clear idea of my way forward and cannot wait to start doodling.
Over to you
So, I invite you to create your own mood board for a project or image idea. When working with me, I am more than happy to see what ideas you have.
I am like a detective. The collection of items reveals a lot about how you want your business to feel.
Try and focus your ideas to a select number of images and typography. Formulate 2-3 boards if you prefer, or sit with your ideas a few days and see how you feel when re-visiting the board. Ask trustworthy friends and previous clients to comment on how the mood board is being interpreted.
When formulating your mood board, great questions to ponder are ‘How do you think your audience will respond to these colours/images/typography etc?’
If you would like me to help you realise a desire to make your business look more beautiful, then connect with me here for a no obligation chat.
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Let’s get moody!! 😉
Fab idea Lisa! I’ve used Pinterest to help clients get clearer on their design ideas (though mostly this part of the process is covered by the designer I work with on client projects).
I will be re-designing my own site this year, and I will definitely start with a mood board myself. Do you suggest any software to put ideas together or do you use old fashioned paper?!
Thanks!
Yes, I would suggest using a method that suits you best. It could be a simple paper collage or a cut and paste into a Word or Pages doc. Or, it could be a collage created in the free Pic Monkey or pixlr . This particular board was put together in Photoshop..
I think Pinterest is useful for initial discovery scanning, but you cannot easily give each image a weighting of move them around and categorise within the board. This can make things a bit more tricky for us…
Thank you for asking as it is a great question..
Lisa, I love this idea of creating a mood board – to add anything that inspires you – colours, textures, shapes, – I can see how that would make it so much easier to get clarity on the type of look and feel you’re after.
And that board there is beautiful – look forward to seeing more! 🙂
Thank you Ann. Yes, sometimes we don’t know why something inspires us or how it may be integrated within an image…. But, having a place to collate them all is like candy for an artist ;))