Friday 27 January 2017

Create a mood board with these top tips


A mood board is one of the essential parts of creating a successful interior design scheme. It's an essential tool when you are planning to decorate for yourself. Designers who have a very strong mood board and presentation usually have the most successful end results as they are the best prepared.



The reason to invest time creating a mood board is simple- thrash out your ideas and find out what works and what doesn’t on paper before you flex that credit card. It can save you a world of pain and expense! It will also make the whole project less daunting as you will be empowered to keep your design on track. For example if your eye gets diverted by a bargain, you can check it against your mood board and if it doesn’t fit the scheme, don’t buy it!
Where to start? I always think it’s a good idea to start with a concept board- this is where you get really free and can add any image to your board, not just swatches or pictures of to-die-for rooms. Use fashion images, architecture, wildlife, art, whatever you’re drawn to. This can really help you to tap into your personal style and taste that you can then translate into your interior schemes. For example if you love tribal prints in your wardrobe, chances are it could work in your interior too.
The whole point of a mood board is not to get too fixed, so tear pages from magazines and catalogues, print images off the web and gather lots of fabric, wallpaper and flooring swatches. Keep it loose so you can add things as easily as take them away. A large sheet of cardboard and sticky tape is as good as it needs to be.
Here are my five top tips to creating a successful mood board:
  • Use a large swatch for paint, wallpaper or flooring- as they represent a large area in the room. You can then layer up images on top of these.
  • Where possible get a real sample; fabric swatch for the sofa, tester pot for the paint, samples for flooring and fabrics. You’ll be matching these swatches so they need to be true colour representations.
  • Include accessories on your board as these often add the personal touch or theme to your scheme for example ‘Coastal’, ‘Deco’ or ‘Vintage’.
  • After you’ve established the colour story think of a definite accent colour that you can pick out to highlight and lift the overall look. This might be used in accessories, cushions, a rug or ornaments.
  • Make sure your board represents the textures in your scheme, be it mirror, metallics, raw linen, rope or cut glass. Texture is a really key way of bringing a scheme to life.
  • Don’t just rely on Google images and website grabs for your mood board. Also take snaps of things you like with your phone while you’re out and about.


Source: Sophie Robinson

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