How to Make a Mood Board to Use in Your Creative Practice
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Today I wanted to share a little bit virtually how to make a mood board – and some tips for ways y'all can apply mood boards for your creative practice!
While mood boards certainly aren't anything new, it'south a fun creative practice that can exist used in a number of unlike ways – even if you lot *aren't* a professional artist or designer.
If the idea of learning how to make mood board seems complicated, I want to assure y'all non but can it be easy to create – it can exist a LOT of fun to practice!
What is a Mood Board?
A mood lath, sometimes also spelled every bit all 1 discussion like moodboard – is defined every bit this:
mood board, noun: an system of images, materials, pieces of text, etc., intended to evoke or project a particular style or concept.
Mood boards are mostly believed to follow one central concept or theme, but since they pertain to portraying a feeling {hence the proper noun "mood"} – in that location really are no limits on what types of materials you might include!
Most mood boards are a visual collection of different images and phrases – but you tin can too expand information technology to include colour palettes, textile, textures and even small objects y'all find from effectually the house!
One could contend many collages could be classified equally mood boards – although that is non the case for everything.
Why Should You Apply Mood Boards in Your Creative Practice?
There are many benefits to using a mood board for creative inspiration. While many professionals such as interior designers and branding consultants use mood boards to convey styles to their clients, you do not need to necessarily take a specific project in listen to create a mood board!
Reason #1: Focus on a Theme for Personal Development
I frequently like to create mood boards to help me recall what goals or cardinal themes I'm focusing on in my life. Mood boards can be a great visual aide for personal, creative and spiritual development!
For example, here is a mood board I created for March 2022 that focuses on some of the things I'm thinking about. 
Each paradigm and proverb on this mood board reflects the central theme I want to focus on for the calendar month of March. From making fourth dimension to relax with a cup of my favorite tea to going on walks to discover the new sights of spring, there is a lot to drawn inspiration from here!
The quotes "I am lucky to have you" and "a good laugh is sunshine in the house" are good reminders to be grateful for the people in my life right now.
Reason #2: Detect New Color Combinations
The other advantage of mood boards? They let you play with many different color combinations! For example, just from the mood board above, I can detect three whole new color palettes to play with in my art journals! 
I created my digital mood board in Photoshop by using pictures from public domain and stock photo websites – but you practice non need to necessarily need to do it this way! I'll share some more resources on this below towards the stop of this post.
Reason #3: Organize and Program
I don't ever create digital mood boards. There is much to exist said virtually the creative procedure of using images cut out from old books and magazines!
Here is an older mood lath page I created in my journal 
While some might argue this looks similar your typical smash-upwardly in a junk journal, in that location are some very specific themes – in this case – reading and books!
At the fourth dimension, I was preparing for a journal-making workshop I was didactics at ane of our local libraries for their adult summer reading plan on creating a reading periodical.
Making a mood board similar this helped me sort through and process all those ideas swirling through my head!
I loved the concept of the people with their fingers upwardly to their mouths with the burke point to be quiet – that was very much a cardinal theme to the journals. A journal is your place to be loud and bold!
This folio as well gave me some ideas for types of cheap materials we could use in creating the books, so that nosotros would be able to offering the workshop for gratuitous.
We used the text pages from several outdated and out of circulation library books that were headed for recycling – and even a few junk mail envelopes!
It was a super fun upshot – and I know creating a mood board helped set the tone – not to mention greatly helped in planning and organizing all the ideas I was trying to procedure!
You could use a mood lath to program almost any type of event or project – whether for the everyday in your monthly planner, for organizing projects at habitation and work, or fifty-fifty special occasions like parties and celebrations!
Ready to Create Your Own Mood Board? Bully! Here's How to Get Started
Now that we've gone over all the ways I love to use mood boards, allow's talk about some ways to create your ain mood lath!
Hither'due south How to Make a Mood Board on Paper:
Footstep 1: Choose a canvass!
This tin can be a page {or more!} in your journal, or if your mood lath is something you would like to continue on brandish, you can employ poster lath, carte stock, canvas panels, or even a cork board with button pins.
We have far also curious of cats to rely on a cork board with push button pins, but I so very much beloved the idea! Stepping on push pins the cats knock down…non so much, lol.
Pace ii: Choose a Theme or Concept
Having a central theme or concept is not always a requirement, but I do think it can help narrow downwards the overwhelm when yous go to gather your images together as a collection.
The theme tin be broad {ie: My Goals This Calendar month} – or information technology tin be specific {ie: Beach/Travel/Vacation Plans}. If you find yourself stuck on this, don't overthink it – simply move to the side by side step – more than likely a concept or theme will begin to present itself every bit yous go through magazines and images that catch your attention.
Sometimes the universe conspires like that to requite you the message you don't even know you lot might need!
Step three: Gather Your Images:
There actually are no wrong means to gather images. I like to get through magazines and cut and tear out pictures, colors, and patterns – as well as headlines, quotes, and phrases.
If manually cutting out images from stacks of magazines is non your loving cup of tea, or if y'all aren't finding images that match your theme, you lot tin can also ever print images you similar from public domain image sites such as Pixabay.com and others.
Stride four: Assemble the Collection: 
One time you have a dainty choice of images and text, you're fix to collage! I like to outset with the biggest images beginning – that way I know they will ever fit. So I movement onto the medium sized images, and then the smallest images and text phrases terminal.
In that location is no wrong way to exercise this, and you can e'er play around with different arrangements before gluing them downward!
I usually do this with a uncomplicated glue stick – while I dearest other collage mediums, they can sometimes cause frail magazine pages to contraction. You lot tin always exercise a light meridian coat when finished with matte gel medium later if the magazine images are besides glossy.
Step 5: Allow to Dry out and Use as Inspiration!
Exist sure all glue is dry before y'all close the pages in your periodical – you don't want them to stick together!
You can do this with a oestrus gun, or simply allow to dry overnight. Now you can go back to your moodboard anytime you demand a creative elevator or new dose of inspiration!
Want to Get Digital? No Special Software Required!
While I love using Photoshop to create digital mood boards, you don't even necessarily need any type of design skills or special software to create 1 digitally!
If you have a smart telephone or tablet, you can easily download collage maker apps that permit you to quickly create cute collages either from your own images or freely bachelor stock images on the web.
Adobe Spark is simply ane example – y'all tin can also try Canva and many others. I swear new ones continue coming out each and every mean solar day!
On your laptop or desktop, you tin too create a photo collage only using your word processing certificate software. Insert and conform the images as you like and voila! Piece of cake peasy collage without having to learn a whole new software program.
If you practise utilise Photoshop, at that place are many mood board Photoshop templates available that tin help you create a collage apace and hands – simply place your images and prune to the groundwork squares.
Hither's a video from Scrapvine that shares a little bit about how to use templates for a moodboard collage.
Mood Boards are Fun! You Should Make Ane Today!
While I've been creating mood boards on and off many times over the years, I've really forgotten how much I love them!
One new addiction I hope to outset is to create at least 1 new mood board a month – whether digitally or within the pages of my journals. I'll be sure to share any that I create!
And if y'all create a mood board for inspiration, I would Honey to encounter it! Bring together our Facebook Community to share your work and connect with others for endless inspiration!
Have any questions about how you can get started with creating a mood lath? Comments and questions are always welcome in the section below!
Source: https://artjournalist.com/how-to-make-mood-boards/
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