Pro tip: I spent 2 years building mood boards all wrong

I was over at a friend's studio in Austin last month and she showed me her process - literally just screenshots thrown on a blank canvas with zero curation. Made me realize I was spending 3 hours per project trying to make mood boards look pretty instead of just saving the vibe. Has anyone else caught themselves designing the design process instead of the actual work?

2 comments

2 Comments

milam4218d ago

Honestly, my friend Dave was the exact same way. He spent a whole weekend making this super detailed mood board for a logo he was working on, color coded and everything. Then his client sent over a random napkin sketch of what they actually wanted and he had to scrap the whole thing. Now he just keeps a folder on his phone called "vibes" where he dumps screenshots of anything that catches his eye. It takes him maybe 10 minutes now and the work is way better.

fiona_nelson5118d ago

Three hours on a mood board sounds like overkill honestly but I bet your friend Dave's "vibes" folder is just as messy in its own way. My neighbor owns a coffee shop and she spent six months agonizing over the font for her menu board then swapped it for a sharpie scrawl on chalkboard because it felt right. The whole "it took 10 minutes and the work is better" thing feels like a story people tell themselves to feel productive not because it's actually true. Sometimes those pretty mood boards are what stop you from getting distracted by every random napkin sketch a client digs up. Speed isn't always quality is all I'm saying.