How to Create a Mood Board for Your Interior Design Project
Starting an interior design or home renovation project can feel intimidating at first. Where do you begin?
At our design studio, we always suggest starting with a mood board to refine your vision. Whether you’re looking for modern chic or quiet luxury, a mood board helps you pick the styles, colours, patterns, and materials for the space and helps you envision the feelings and emotions you want the room to evoke.
Especially when planning detailed or high-end projects, by creating a mood board first, you have a guide to ensure your vision for the room remains on track.
Keep reading to learn how to make a mood board and how an interior designer can help turn that vision into a reality.
What is a mood board?
A mood board (also known as an inspiration board) can help you visualize the look and feel of your new space. It’s not (necessarily) about clipping or pinning the exact furniture and decor items you want for your room. It’s more about conveying the general feeling or theme for your project.
The goal of the mood board is to act as a sounding board as you design your room. Every design choice you make should match the “mood” of the board to ensure everything is cohesive.
Your mood board can be a poster or wall cork board, or made digitally through screenshots and images in a graphic design program. Many people use applications like Pinterest to house their mood boards online. A mood board will include pictures of styles you like, themes you want, colour combinations you love, sample textures or materials, and even photos of activities you plan to do in the room.
How to create a mood board
To kick start a mood board for your interior design project, start by saving images to give to your interior designer. You can use Pinterest, or cut them from magazines. Then, your designer will create the board for you to review and make tweaks until you feel the design speaks to your sense of style.
If you plan to create your own mood board, follow these simple steps:
Step 1: Choose a digital or physical board
If you’re preparing your board digitally, look for a digital mood board software or your favourite graphic design software. Canva is a great tool for free design software. You can also use Microsoft Word or PowerPoint if you’re already familiar with those programs.
Others use Pinterest as a social media tool to pin their favourite images and make boards. You will need to start by creating a Pinterest account and creating a board with a name to associate it. Pin images, videos and quotes by hovering over posts on the home feed and clicking on them. Add them to your project board.
If you’re creating a physical mood board, decide how and where you’ll create it. It may mean buying a corkboard, magnetic board, or large poster board. Make sure you have supplies to cut and attach inspiration to your board. This may include glue, magnets, or push pins.
Step 2: Start gathering inspiration
There are a plethora of places to gather inspiration for your mood board! You can:
Browse sites like Pinterest and Instagram
Look at stock picture sites like Unsplash
Gather magazines, flyers, and brochures
Collect magazines from different years and seasons. A variety will ensure your chosen images aren’t too heavily influenced by seasonal trends.
Focus on getting a broad mix of:
Wide shot (full rooms) and close-up (for detail) images
Images from different seasons or years
Quotes, colours, textures and even products! Whatever speaks to you.
Step 3: Begin selecting images
Once you have a stack of materials to work with, begin clipping or arranging things that you like. You don’t need to explain why; pick items that speak to you or the theme you want for your room. You can clip and add to a pile or place them on your board.
Step 4: Collect samples
An optional but helpful step is to collect samples of materials you like. This might include getting paint swatches or samples of tiles, carpets, flooring, and other materials for your space.
Step 5: Pick a main inspiration image
Once you’ve designed your board, pick the image or material that best represents your vision. This could be an image that you feel the most strongly about. Maybe it makes your heart beat faster, or you look at it and feel it, or it represents the feeling or emotion you want the room to evoke in you.
Step 6: Assemble your mood board
The best way to assemble your mood board is to organize it by inspiration type. For example, anything you’ve included for colour inspiration should be attached to your board in the same area. Anything related to the feeling or tone of the room (like pictures of what you’d be doing in the room) should be in a separate section, and so on. Place your main inspiration image either in the middle of it all or the top center so it stands out.
Step 7: Implementing your design
Once your mood board is complete, you can start shopping! Begin designing your space by choosing the materials and items for your room. If you’re finding it challenging to get started, your mood board may not be complete yet. Now might be a good time to meet with an interior designer to polish your board and help you put the finishing touches to complete your project. They can help you refine the details and help source additional sample materials.
Mood board tips
To make your mood board even more functional, here are a few additional tips:
Start with a main colour, then choose a few secondary or accent colours.
When you have a primary colour, go online to find a colour palette tool and see what colours complement it well.
Be ambitious. Don’t worry too much about the functionality of any of your “choices,” as they are just there for inspiration.
Be sure your mood board matches your lifestyle and intended use of the room (for example, while you may love a pure white palette and glass accents, if you have young kids, this may not be the most realistic choice).
How to turn your mood board into reality
Don’t have time to do a mood board for your project? Hire an interior designer who can take your vision and create a mood board that you dream about. They can also help you source products for your renovation project.
Ariane Design Co can help you elevate your design. We are a boutique interior design studio specializing in renovations, furniture, and decor for mid to high-end residential projects. We can help you refine your mood board or start one from scratch.
Tell us about your project, and we’ll coordinate a complimentary call to discuss how we can help you get started.