As the saying goes, time is money, especially for a freelance graphic designer. To be successful you want your design process to be as efficient as possible, while delivering high-quality designs. After completing your preliminary research for a project, the next step would be to brainstorm ideas and present them to the client. However, it’s hard to communicate visual ideas with just words alone. You need a way to translate them into visualizations — which is why creating a mood board as a freelance graphic designer is a good idea.

A Quick Guide to Creating a Mood Board

WHAT IS A MOOD BOARD?

A mood board acts as a style guide and sets the creative direction for the project. You are free to include anything for inspiration, from an 80s movie poster to a cat picture. It doesn’t have to be just images — you can also use text to fill in any gaps in information.

Besides defining design elements such as color and typography, a mood board is often used to set the overall aesthetic for the brand. In this example Sarah Stark, a graphic designer based in Charlotte, North Carolina, wanted to go with an organic feel that touches on the art nouveau movement as well as some Swiss design.

WHY DO YOU NEED A MOOD BOARD?

It might seem like a waste of time in creating a mood board as a freelance graphic designer when you could just dive right into creating concepts off the top of your head. However, creating a mood board could save you a lot of time down the road. A visual display of ideas will kickstart the discussion between you and the client, allowing you to reach a consensus on the creative direction moving forward. And because a mood board is a low-cost investment, you won’t lose much even if the client wants to go in a different direction

By discussing the mood board with the client, you encourage them to think about what they really want for the end product. Sometimes your intent and the client’s needs might differ, so it’s important to get the client involved. Essentially, you are eliminating the biggest uncertainty in any design process — the client.

Once the mood board is approved by the client, from there your workflow should be much smoother since you now have a solid foundation to build upon.

And don’t stop with one mood board — consider creating a few mood boards based around different themes so both you and the client have more options to work with.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD MOOD BOARD?

Although you can include just about anything when creating a mood board as a freelance graphic designer, make sure that it’s organized and presentable to the client. You don’t want to waste their time by sending a mood board with hundreds of random images. Instead, choose only the ones you feel best represent your intent and arrange them in a manner that’s easily understandable.

WAYS TO CREATE A MOOD BOARD

Since you are likely working online, consider creating your mood boards digitally with these two recommendations:

Pinterest is very popular among graphic designers and for good reason, It’s basically a one-stop shop combining both inspiration and mood boarding. After signing up, feel free to explore the site to your heart’s content and uncover thousands of visuals from which to create your mood boards.

Go Moodboard is a simple-to-use tool and requires no account to get started. Just drop images into a selected template and upload. You also have the option to add comments to images , making it easier for you to share your thoughts with the client.

Even without a client, having a few mood boards prepared beforehand can be useful since you never know when they might come in handy.

IN CONCLUSION

Mood boards, when used effectively, can work wonders for your workflow, so it’s a good idea to get into the habit creating mood boards as a freelance graphic designer. If mood boarding has never been part of your design process, why not give it a go and see how it works for you?