Whether you’re designing your own home or collaborating with a designer, a mood board is a great way to get everyone on the same page. Here’s how to make a digital or physical mood board. Your inspiration can come from anywhere, including a fashion photo on Instagram or paint color samples from your local hardware store.
Choose a Color Palette
Creating a mood board allows you to see how paint colors, fabrics, and furniture pieces might work together. The process can also help you refine your ideas by showing how a room will look, feel, and function once it’s complete. Whether you’re redecorating or doing a full home renovation, choosing the right color palette is essential. Mood boards help make the design decision-making process more manageable by narrowing down your choices.
Before you begin, decide whether you want to create a physical or digital mood board. If you prefer the tactile experience of selecting samples, a physical board might be best. This way, you can compile manufacturer samples of fabric, wallpaper, tile, paint or flooring, as well as small accessories, like hardware and fresh or faux greenery. You can also include textures, which is a great option for adding a layer of depth to your board.
Digital mood boards can be equally helpful, as they allow you to search for inspiration on your favorite online design tools and sites, or through a collection of photos saved on your computer. Whether you use Pinterest, Instagram, Dribble or CollectUI, a digital board is a convenient and easy way to collect and organize your inspiration. It’s important to keep in mind, though, that using a digital mood board doesn’t always allow for the flexibility of rearranging or layering images as easily as a physical one.
Once you’ve gathered your inspiration, select 3 to 5 colors to include on your board. Less than three can feel a bit matchy-matchy and more than five might be overwhelming. It’s also important to consider the shade of each color. Warmer colors tend to feel cozy and welcoming, while cool colors often feel more contemporary.
Once you’ve settled on the color scheme, you can begin putting the finishing touches on your mood board. Remember, your goal is to capture the essence of the space and style you’re trying to achieve. Including short text captions, like a relevant statistic or quote, can help to communicate your mood board’s ideas, as can titling your pieces of inspiration.
Select a Theme
Whether you’re planning a room in your home or working on a creative project, the first step of any design process is to find inspiration. A great way to organize your ideas and communicate your style is by creating a mood board. Mood boards are a visual tool that help you transition from ideation to the first draft of your designs, and they’re a great way for homeowners to get involved in the design process with their partners and builders.
The best way to get started with your mood board is by selecting a theme for the space you’re designing. Choosing a theme will guide the direction of your color palette and design elements, helping you create a cohesive look for the room. You can select a theme from any source of inspiration that speaks to you, including fashion, art, nature, or even your own memories. The key is to choose something that you will be able to connect with and feel passionate about.
Once you’ve selected a theme for your mood board, start collecting images and colors that inspire you. This can be done through online sources like Pinterest and Instagram, as well as in-person resources such as fabric swatches from local stores or paint chips from your hardware store. Depending on the type of mood board you’re creating, you may also want to include real samples of existing walls or floors that will remain in the room, as well as furniture pieces that you plan on keeping.
There are a number of programs and apps you can use to create your mood board, but my favourite is Canva (affiliate link). It’s a beginner-friendly program with a wide range of templates and imagery to choose from. It’s also available on mobile so you can work from anywhere. For more advanced users, Adobe’s Creative Cloud software is a great option and offers a variety of tools for curating a mood board.
If you don’t have a desktop or tablet computer, there are a number of great interior design mood board app options as well. Popular choices include Foyr Neo, RoomStyler, Morpholio Board, SampleBoard and Canva. Most of these apps have a free version, but many of them also offer premium options for those who need more features.
Collect Inspiration
There are many ways to collect inspiration for a room, but one of the simplest is a mood board. Whether physical or digital, this design tool serves as an effective way to communicate and manifest your ideas, even when you can’t fully visualize the end result.
Mood boards can help you determine your ideal color palette, create a visual representation of your style, and organize all the pieces that will come together to bring your design to life. They are especially helpful if you’re working with a builder or designer on a project where you need to get everyone on the same page.
The process of creating a mood board begins with collecting images, text and other resources that inspire you and reflect your style. You can find this inspiration online or offline, in magazines or through your social media channels. You can also use a program or app to create your mood board, such as Canva, Morpholio Board, SampleBoard, Adobe Spark or RoomStyler. These programs have a wide range of features and are easy to use, making them great for both professional designers and homeowners alike.
Some people like to create a mood board for each room in their home, but you can just focus on the room or spaces that are the most important to you at this point. Once you have a theme in mind, you can start to play around with different combinations of colors and textures that fit that theme. It’s also a good idea to include photos or swatches of any non-negotiable elements that will remain in the space, such as moldings, flooring and wall color.
When choosing a photo, swatch or piece of fabric for your mood board, consider its scale. A large piece of fabric will need to take up more room on the board than a small accent pillow, for example. When you’re done, take a step back and look at the full image to see if it matches your overall vision for the space. If it doesn’t, you can always shuffle your selections around or make additional changes before the final draft.
Create a Mood Board
As the saying goes, “a picture paints a thousand words.” Mood boards can help explain your design goals to clients or team members, as well as save time that would have been spent trying to communicate them through verbal means. Whether your goal is to create a cohesive, elegant and airy space or something more bold, mood boards can make those ideas more tangible.
A mood board can be a physical or virtual project, though it’s usually easier to use a software program to put together a digital one. Some popular options include Canva, Morpholio Board and PicMonkey (affiliate links). If you’re creating a physical one, be sure to bring in real tones of walls, moldings and flooring to see how those colors will work with your existing space.
Once you’ve collected some inspiration, it’s time to start compiling your mood board! If you’re creating a virtual one, start with a pre-made template to help get your wheels spinning or begin from scratch. Either way, it’s a good idea to arrange items that will be placed next to each other on your mood board. This will give you a better sense of how the space will look and feel once it’s complete.
Remember, the things that you add to your mood board do not have to relate directly to your project—though they can if you wish. A color palette that you love, a piece of furniture you have in mind for the room, a favorite song or artist can all be used to convey your design aesthetic. Just make sure that whatever you choose, it is something that you will be able to purchase or obtain within your budget.
Mood boards aren’t only helpful for home designs—they can also be useful in commercial projects. For example, a fashion designer can create a mood board to help determine color palettes for new collections or outfits. They can also be used to plan a party, gather ideas for a wedding or brainstorm a new theme for their blog. So, next time you have an upcoming project, be sure to take the time to create a mood board to help guide your process.
