If your mind is bubbling with fashion ideas and inspiration, it is time to jot them all down in a creative space. Well, what’s better than a mood board for this? Collect everything that catches your eye, mix, match, combine, and dwell into creative fashion design with endless personal mood board ideas. But first, you may want to know how to create a mood board, specifically, a fashion design mood board.

If you are a student of fashion design, you are constantly looking around for ideas. Be it in random surroundings, on social media, in magazines, during runway shows, etc.; you can find inspiration anywhere and everywhere.

A professional fashion design mood board can be a space for you to play with ideas. If you are new to this concept or need help, you’re at the right stop. Today, let’s figure out how to create a mood board for fashion design and how to make it professional. We’ll also look at how you can boost your creativity through academic pursuits, like the Advanced Diploma in Fashion Design from JD Institute of Fashion Technology.

What is a Fashion Design Mood Board?

Before exploring ideas and putting them up on this board, you need to understand what is mood board in fashion.

An inspiration board definition can be simply put as a collage of images, materials, and objects reflecting a mood. The main goal behind the fashion design mood board is to focus on a certain aesthetic. This is then used as a base to direct all styling ideas to form a collection of design inspiration.

Fashion mood board ideas include colour palettes, ongoing fashion trends, photographs, illustrations, magazine clippings, fabric pieces, textures, patterns, etc. All of the gathered ideas must combinedly point towards the one decided aesthetic or mood.

A mood board template or layout can be a part of the design planning process too. Mood boards can also be displayed during presentations as the vision for a project.

A comprehensive fashion course guides you through the software and tools that guide you on how to create a mood board. To understand it better, a quick internet search on mood board examples related to fashion will give you ideas.

Designing a Mood Board

The process of designing a mood board may seem complicated and lengthy, but we’re here to break it down for you. It’s important to keep certain things in mind while going through the steps; these are given below.

1) The Drafting Process

It is natural to be a perfectionist if you are a fashion designer. But chasing perfection from day one can be difficult and may drain you out. This is where the mood board becomes a saviour- it becomes a space for you to roughly sketch out your ideas without worrying about the results.

This rough draft can be later presented as a base to the team and the client, who can add their input to improve the concept. Once this is done, you can shift to taking action based on your mood board themes.

2) Building Client Relations

Sometimes, you can ask the clients themselves to make mood boards in order to understand their expectations and point of view. Despite having conflicting ideas, catering to your client’s exact needs should be your priority.

Moreover, handing this responsibility to the client makes them more involved in the process and gives them authority. This way, you encourage teamwork, trust, and satisfaction, while mitigating discrepancies later.

3) Visualising Ideas

Often, communicating with your clients may inspire illustrative ideas out of words. Jotting those down immediately and then matching them with colours, objects, patterns, prints, etc., can assist in visualising the words.

4) Exploring Concepts

As an artist, you usually do not settle on one concept. This might apply while creating a mood board too. But a mood board allows you the space to creatively explore your range of ideas. You can come up with more than one mood board and present them to your team or clients and take it ahead.

How to Create a Mood Board?

Well, the answer falls in the basics of fashion design. Your ideas are valuable and putting them on the plate is crucial. You just need to know how to go on about it.

First, you need to start by asking yourself some questions:

• What are you trying to convey?
• Are your ideas consistent with a theme?
• Are all the elements of your design, like colour, fabric, textures, etc., fitting in with each other?
• What can you add to the empty spaces?
• What does your team think about it?

Once you have these answers, it’s time to address the key elements of your mood board template. These include the following design essentials:

• A colour palette
• Fabrics, textures, prints, embellishments
• Reference themes and trends inspiration
• Your target audience
• Important texts and keywords
• Styling, outfit, makeup, and other suggestions
• Other mood boards for reference

After you have filled in these elements, it’s time to consider these last steps before finalising your mood board.

• Analyse your image choices
• Carry out any pending research
• Finalise the mood or emotion you want to convey
• Decide whether you want a traditional or digital board
• Refine and edit any remaining elements
• Compile or print your board

And voila! You’re ready to go with your mood board set, and a drive to take action.

Source: Unsplash

Ending Notes

Fashion design is an ever-growing field where enthusiasts can never stop learning. As per AmbitionBox, fashion designers in India can earn as much as INR 7,20,000/- LPA. But to reach there, you need to ensure that you start with the right academic exposure. JD Institute of Fashion Technology brings a new way of approaching fashion design and takes you from basics to expertise.

In the list of basics, you also learn how to create a mood board, which is an inevitable part of any design career. A professional fashion mood board leads you from an idea to its implementation while always having a reference. In between, you can visualise, add, edit, and eliminate things easily if you have a board to refer to. Additionally, there are several other benefits of having a set of mood board themes for fashion designing, many of which have been covered above. We hope that this guide offered you insight on how to create a mood board.

So, are you ready to learn more and delve into exploring ideas for your fashion mood boards? Enrol at JD Institute today!