How to Make a Mood Board
Mood boards. What are they? Don’t high school girls make them; how would this benefit my business? Today we’re solving those questions and diving more in depth on mood boards.
Mood Boards are a visual collage of images, text, elements, and more. People can make mood boards for anything! A party someone is planning, someone's future, aesthetically pleasing art, a small business’s brand, and so much more! I think of it as a way to take everything in your mind and applying all of that onto one board. Some things might work well together and some might not, but comparing them can help you narrow it down significantly.
When I’m creating a brand for a client, they have several ideas they love. Maybe they are warring between a handful of color palettes or just general ideas. I think creating a mood board can help narrow down all of those ideas and help clients get on one path. It also really helps pointing out what works well together and what doesn’t. Maybe we really like this font, but it really doesn’t mesh well with everything else - now we know that and can readjust.
How do we make one? There are lots of ways you can tackle creating one. Photoshop, Canva, buying a poster board and printing out things, etc. For this blog post I’m going to walk you through how to create one on Canva. Canva is a free design tool that I recommend constantly to small business owners. There are a TON of free elements it offers and I think it’s the best free option out there.
Once you’re into Cavna you’ll want to create your board so you can find and apply all of your information on top! I would recommend selecting or looking up in the search bar ‘Instagram Story’ if you want a vertical mood board and ‘Facebook Cover’ if you want a horizontal board. Once you have either selected you’ll want to start adding things! Here’s a few things I like to have at minimum on the board.
Title
2-5 colors
Inspiration images
Elements (polka dots, stripes, watercolors, etc)
Fonts
Words or phrases
How do I find all of this in Canva? Once you have selected the orientation of your mood board, you should be redirected to it and you should see a list of options to your left. Elements, uploads, text, etc. Let’s dive into what you can do with each of these. Under elements you can find shapes, flowers, patterns, graphics, and so much more. That search bar is awesome, so don’t forget to use that! Uploads is where you can upload your own photos. So maybe you found a color palette on Google you like that you saved. You can upload it to your board now! Text, which is also just like it sounds. You’ll see a bunch of options at first, but it doesn’t really matter what you pick because you can change and customize the font once it’s on your board.
If you struggle figuring out what colors go together, I would recommend looking up some color palettes on Google. You could look up keywords if you have any in mind like ‘Boho color palettes’ or you could look up something as simple as “Neutral green color palettes’. Throw in some words and see what you get; if you don’t like what you see just look something else up. The goal is to just get a collection of your thoughts and ideas in one spot. As you develop, grow, and add to the mood board you’ll see it start to come together. There isn’t a certain way to organize it, just make sure everything is visible in some way. It’s totally normal for things to overlap, but they also don’t have to. I don’t think every small business owner absolutely needs to create a mood board, but if you have a lot of ideas or struggle with visualizing things then I would highly recommend it.
It only takes about 10-15 mins to create and you can bring it to your designer for logos, websites, ads, and honestly anything! It’s a great starting point to showing what your brand looks and feels like. Get creative and don’t feel like there’s a right and wrong way to do it!