Clearly define the direction and theme before creating a particular mood board.It really helps me tie food to colors, props, and different styling methods.A mood board is a visual tool used to represent ideas with a collection of images and texts arranged on a board design project. What their kitchen island looks like filled with beautiful food for a party, and what a seated and totally designed dinner table might look like. For me, I am able to imagine people living in a space and what their community and conversation might be like. I think interior design can tie really closely to food specifically. Rylee: One of my favorite outside of the box inspiration hacks is looking through any interior design magazines and websites. Something about studying how buildings are constructed, what materials create beautiful homes, and how plants mesh with each other to create gorgeous garden-scapes really gets my brain working! Looking at flowers helps me think about color, too. Laura: I absolutely love looking through old editions of Architectural Digest and gardening magazines. Here are some of our favorite places to look.
It can be hard to find photographs for the ideals you’re seeking outside of your industry. Having those types of shots on mood boards tends more towards plagiarism - even unintentionally! - and less towards inspiration. If you send us photos of what your competitors are doing or ask us to recreate photos you saw while scoping out the competition, that’s not fair to that brand OR to the photographer who worked for them. The reason we do that is to help you and your brand get a completely customized visual brand that stands out from what everyone else is doing. Here’s why: we work hard to create completely customized shoot lists and photos for each brand. One thing we don’t love? Seeing competitor’s work pop up on mood boards. Posts on social media that have stopped your scrollĪnything else that inspires you and your brand!Īs photographers, we love when brands send over all of the above as inspiration. Here’s a list of things to think about finding to put on your mood board for your brand: Considering that a mood board is one of the only chances that a brand has to tangentially communicate what aesthetic they’re going for with their photos, it’s important to have all stakeholders weigh in.
Having a mood board that was created with input from both teams ensures that everyone is aligned in terms of visual branding before anyone picks up a camera. Mood boards are key for laying a good foundation for photography. Let’s dive in! Why Mood Boards are Important
Since we’ve been making more mood boards than we can count lately (!), we wanted to sketch out our guidelines for what you need to include, how to seek inspiration without stealing work, and why mood boards are so important. Mood boards are an amazing tool to prepare for a shoot and help make sure that photographers and brand teams are aligned, but they’re also a breeding ground for borderline plagiarism and straight-up theft. Making mood boards is a hot topic in the photography industry. Man, has it been a while or has it been a while? Here at Four Course, we’ve been busier than we ever hoped we’d be, and we are so stinkin’ happy about that! Between all of our shoots and client on-boarding calls and coffee breaks, we wanted to pop on here and talk about one of our favorite aspects of preparing for a shoot: making the mood boards.