IXD304 – 10 Inspirational Mood boards – Article Review

One thing to kick my inspiration off starting my Apollo project is to create a storyboard. However, I wanted to find new innovative techniques and ways to create and visually manifest a proposed identity for my new project. Thankfully, Kyle has shared with us an article to read by Tony Ho Tran which delves into the creative and meaningful ways in which mood boards can be created besides the old Pinterest boards that are easy to just pile together and conclude as fundamental research.

Moodboards are ways to kick off the visual representation of any project. They can often be quick, easy to compile and understand. It is a way to understand the visual essence of a project which words can often fail to do. As UX designers mood boards are a simple way of conveying and confirming a visual essence upon work to share between myself and others, so it is important to create a coherent mood board to show others how you intend the project to be.

The three main purposes mood boards have are:

  • Definition – Defines a visual aesthetic of a project.
  • Inspiration – Stimulates other ideas and innovations which might haven’t previously been considered.
  • Direction –  Creates a visual guide to help overcome design challenges.

Creating a successful mood board to connect with your ideas as well as the ideas of your client is consistent. A problem all too well is people throwing junk into a mood board and feeling like Picasso – I’ve been a victim of this a few times myself. We can use consistency in mood boards for a range of things through patterns, scenorios, era, colours, emotion, etc.

We also have to take into consideration whom we are designing for. For example, projects catered to children will have mood boards that are relatively vast, saturated and easy to understand.

For me, a good way to understand the essence of my project is to create a physical mood board as it will push me out of the conventional digital one. It allows me to connect with my board in a more physical way and distort it to whatever feels fit. Additionally, it allows me to explore a wide range and diverse ways of implementation and can even have sensational touch e.g. scents. as they are very rememberable and can create nostalgia if tied to a certain place, etc.

What can physical mood boards consist of? 

  • Magazines
  • Books
  • Journals
  • Paintings
  • Photographs
  • Sketches
  • Scents
  • Fabrics
  • Paints
  • Plants

Digital mood boards have become the new normal over the years, it gives the designer a flexible canvas that they can distort and combine to create a precise visual representation. It can be easier to collaborate, less time-consuming and hold a larger inventory. However, the only downside would be the physical touch being lost.

What tools are there for digital mood boards?

Envision Boards – Invision boards is like the Miro for mood boards. It’s easy to access and work together and can create some high-fidelity mood boards.

Canva – This is a more picture-Esque time mood boarding creator, it’s especially important for branding, work type material and can be exported into many ratios/formats.

Pinterest – The most popular mood boarding software – acts almost like social media but instead uses pictures to share ideas and inspiration. This is the site to which I am most commonly adjusted to.

Sample Boards – Specifically for designers, this is almost like a guideline mood board showcasing different colour pallets along with similar photos that are consistent of one another.

Instagram/Social Media – Less commonly used but equally as important is Instagram or similar social media. These sites have a large inventory of creators, photographers, etc that share photos on day to day basis.

Inspiration

Tony then shows us a compilation of mood boards that can potentially inspire us, I’ve picked three of my favorite.

One of my favorites is a digital mood board by Saxon Campell. She uses visually inscribes a limited selection of colour in a monotone yet contrasting way. From this, it has appeared to me of the importance the location and positioning of each photo have in a mood board. She carefully selects each photo to create a jigsaw compilation to give it a cleaner and more memorable look. She also uses photography extremely well putting emphasis on the female lifestyle e.g. showing up close seductive lips, fashionable clothes and luxury scenarios with more emphasis on the mouth to express female beauty and perfection.

Another that caught my eye was this mood board created by 1924us. Through natural colours and vast, beautiful landscape composition it portrays a sense of freedom and the American wild. It heavily relies on captivating its essence through the photography of couples/families smiling in the wild while also using a natural colour scheme that is representational of real life. It’s art is to try and combine modern life with the untouched wilderness that’s been here for many years before. It is emotional, captivating and inclusive. They also include two photos representational of their brand e.g. wordmark and typography to create a connection between their brand and photo collage. Additionally, these elements have the same pale neutral tones seen in the photos.

A more upbeat, modern and chaotic mood board is one by Vivek Venkatraman. It is for a company promoting their alcoholic beverage which is in the European continent. It uses saturated photos symbolic of a summer’s day in Europe that can resonate with many people. While also exploring the values of a company to confirm the mood board’s intentions. Similar to 1924us this mood board evokes an emotional meaning behind its collage using relative sceneries in which people may find themselves in the past.

What have I learned?

One of the main reasons I read this article was to gain inspiration from both the technique and methods of mood boards and how to implement them properly and accurately. I feel like this article has appropriately acquired my new tools of discovery and implementation and I intend to use some of the methods shown above. However, I cannot jump in straight away so I need to make a more basic mood board before I make more defined decisions. Additionally, It was helpful to breakdown some of the provided mood boards to find out their intentions and show that is more than just scrambling a bunch of related photos together.

 

 

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