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Bright Green Door

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How to make a Mood Board

February 20, 2017 By BrightGreenDoor

Although I’m not an interior designer, shopping for a space and putting together mood boards is something that I love to do. Because I didn’t go to design school, I never got to learn the technical aspects of design. I wanted to learn how to make a mood board, and discovered that Olioboard is the perfect tool for this. It doesn’t require any photoshop skills, and is pretty user friendly. Often readers have asked how I create these mood boards, so today I’ll walk you through how you can create them too.

Modern Bedroom Mood Board

This mood board is one that I created for a client’s guest bedroom a few years ago. I went in and updated it so that it did not include any discontinued items. Here are in the links to the items if you’re interested **contains affiliate links**: Bed, Chair, Rug, Bedding, Curtains, Lamp, Mirror, Art Print, Nightstand, Yellow Pillow, Barn Door.

Ok, so let’s get started. First create a free account at Olioboard. Then click on “+Create”.

Olioboard Tutorial for Beginners

Once you create a board, your blank board will appear along with the sidebar that includes the items to use in your moodboard. Although there are TONS of images available for you to use, typically I upload the images that I have already saved for the space I’m designing.

How to Design Mood BoardsTo do this I click on “My Items”, and then I upload images that I have saved for the mood board. I’ve found that it’s much easier when you can use images that already have a white background. So if you’re saving images for a board, default to saving the ones without anything in the background.

How to Create Mood BoardsOnce you have uploaded your images, you’ll have to name them. I don’t fill out any of the other fields, and just give the items basic names. Then you can save these items and they will all be available for you to use.

How to Use Olioboard to Make Mood BoardsNext it’s as simple as dragging each item onto your blank mood board. Once you drag the items over you can choose to enlarge, rotate, remove backgrounds, add a frame, etc. You can see for the moodboard that I created I couldn’t find a stock image of the bedding on a white background. When this happens I just frame the image in a box, and use it in the moodboard framed. You’ll notice the default layout for a moodboard is a horizontal rectangle. I prefer to do square moodboards, so I just use the middle of the space and crop it later.Creating Simple Moldboards without Photoshop

Sometimes, your stock image will have something that doesn’t fit in your board, like this red pillow that was on mine. In order to cover this up, I just dropped a yellow pillow on top of it. The red one is still there, but it is just behind the yellow pillow.

How to Design Mood Boards

As I add more items, I continue to move each item around until I like the layout. In the image above I shared a shot of the toolbar. After selecting an item you can do things like rotate, move it ahead of or behind other items, flip it, duplicate it, or crop it. This is something that is pretty simple to learn once you start playing around with it.

How to Save Mood Boards

Once you’re happy with your mood board, you can save and download the board as a JPG. After I’ve saved the board, this is when I crop it. Modern Bedroom Mood Board

As you can see, creating the mood board is actually pretty simple. The hard work is sourcing all of the items, and then finding and saving images for each item. If that is something you love doing, I hope this tutorial was helpful! If sourcing and designing just isn’t your thing, custom mood boards are something that I offer as part of my “design services“. For $250 per mood board I am able to help you find furniture, art, curtains, paint, lighting, and help you solve your design dilemmas. Here are some examples of mood boards that I have created for clients and personal use over the last few years:

Modern Mood Board E-DesignThanks so much for reading! If this post was helpful let me know and I’ll try and share more tips like this! Also if you try Olioboard and have any questions I’m happy to try to help answer them.

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Comments

  1. Sandy says

    February 20, 2017 at 5:25 pm

    I am so excited to try this! Thank you so much for sharing!

  2. Victoria says

    February 26, 2017 at 10:22 am

    What a great tutorial! Thank you!!?

  3. Eliesa @ Pinterest Addict says

    April 4, 2017 at 5:04 pm

    This is perfectly timed! Makes it look so easy 🙂

    • BrightGreenDoor says

      April 4, 2017 at 8:30 pm

      If you have any questions let me know. It’s taken a little practice but now I can knock out a mood board in under 20 minutes.

  4. Kendra @ www.joyinourhome.com says

    April 4, 2017 at 8:00 pm

    Thanks so much Jess! So excited to make my board for the ORC!

    • BrightGreenDoor says

      April 4, 2017 at 8:30 pm

      Thanks for checking it out! Can’t wait to see what room you tackle!

  5. Susie @ The Chelsea Project says

    April 5, 2017 at 7:14 am

    Great info, Jess. Thanks for sharing. Susie from The Chelsea Project

    • BrightGreenDoor says

      April 5, 2017 at 12:14 pm

      Thanks! I hope it was helpful! I love using Olioboard.

  6. Alicia says

    January 7, 2018 at 2:54 pm

    This was awesome! I feel like I can tacos this finally. Do the images of furniture/decor in olioboard have sources if I wanted to purchase? Or is that catalog for inspiration/idea only? Thanks!

    • BrightGreenDoor says

      January 7, 2018 at 7:27 pm

      I’ve always done my shopping first, and then uploaded my images into Olioboard, I’ve never searched their database. I just did some checking though and it seems like once you drop the item onto your moodboard there is an option to click on it and shop for that item.

Hi, I’m Jess!

I'm a creator & a finder, a maker and a "try to do it all at once-er". If the words vintage, DIY, or anything brass inspires you, you're in the right place! Thanks for stopping by, now don't be a stranger! Let's Connect!

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