The Blog!

Working with moodboards

Here at Vivoo Creative for any web project that requires design before the first concept we create whats called a mood board… on the left you can see an example (and it is a compleat example I quickly put together! CLICK THE IMAGES TO ENLARGE!) When we provide moodboards for design purposes each moodboard contains four elements, Layout, Colour/Texture/Pallet, Photos & Illustration and Inspiration.. See below for more details on each section;

Layout
We put together a homepage layout just to give an idea of what we have in mind for the landing page, we do this with a wire-frame approach, though it is not at all a wire-frame, we go a lot more in depth for that.

Colour, Texture & Elements
As you can see on the quick example I put together on the right, this is probably the most important section of the moodboard, we define the textures, colour pallet and typography and more within this board, it give a clear idea to the client what style we are looking to head for.

Photography & Illustration
Looking through the web and stock websites we build up a few ideas of the type of imagery we are looking to use for the site in general and it’s content.

Inspiration
This sort of goes along with the style of the site, we pick up around 4 websites and add a little explanation to what we like within the website, but of course by no means are looking to copy.

So what is a Moodboard?
Mood boards (sometimes called inspiration boards) are used in a variety of disciplines. You’ve no doubt seen them used for Interior Design, where fabric swatches and paint chip samples are grouped together on a poster to show a homeowner what type of atmosphere the new decor will create. They are also used frequently in Fashion to highlight trends and styles.

In essence they are a compilation of inspirational elements used by designers to flesh out ideas at the beginning of a design project.
A mood board is extremely useful for establishing the aesthetic feel of a web site. Moodboards fit into the process after wire-frames and before design mock-ups, usually when we start soing our sketch-boarding.

The mood board is intentionally casual; it lets us as the designer to start with broad strokes and get feedback before too much time is invested in the wrong direction.