Mood Board

Oftentimes when ideating, it is really beneficial to create a mood board in order to visually get all your ideas out there.

Definition

A mood board is a collection of reference material used to get a sense of the idea that you want to establish to define the visual direction of the project. This is especially useful for not only getting your thoughts concretely down, but also to establish visual cohesion between your team.

Examples of things to create mood boards for:

• backgrounds/locations
• architecture
• art style
• color palettes
• humor
• inspirations

These can be images either drawn yourself, found on the internet, or even photographs taken from real life!

Examples

Hoppers

Here is an art board taken from Pixar’s behind the scenes shot progression on Hoppers

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Finding Nemo

These are taken from Pixar’s Finding Nemo

• The Tank
• The Sunken Ship

Student Examples

Udderworldy

Here’s some mood boards from the UCBUGG Student Short, Udderworldy

Catfish

Here are some mood boards from the UCBUGG Student Short, Catfish

Resources

Here are some nifty resources you can use to compile mood boards/reference boards

• Milanote | Infinite Canvas
• PureRef | Infinite Canvas
• ShotDeck | Collection of stills from films
• Film Grab | Collection of stills from films
• Google Drawings | Infinite Canvas
• Google Slides | Canvas
• Pinterest | Collection of images
• Canva | Canvas