What is a Mood Board? How To Visually Communicate with Your Clients
sample mood board used in fashion shoot
The key to producing photos that your clients will love is communication. However, “I want something whimsical” can mean something different to the photographer versus the clients understanding of the term. Verbally descriptive communication will only work if the words mean the same to everyone, but linguistics does not work in such a way. The best way to read your clients minds is via visual communication. In every multi step large project planning, visual communication is integrated. Theatrical production use story boards, Graphic designers use comp boards, then there are Mood Boards.
A Mood Board is a collection of images to convey the “mood” or the general theme of the brand. The mood board, as applied to photography, can be consisted of color palettes, scenery, poses, outfits, photographic styles, etc. It is a way for client and photographer and staff to brainstorm and plan for the execution of a shared vision.
screenshot of mood board for Engagement Photo Session
In my workflow, I use Pinterest for my mood boards. The “pinning” functionality makes it easy for everyone invited to the board to be able to contribute their ideas. Rather than a back and forth emailing with attachments, a digital pin board makes the process move faster. With the addition of the Pinterest extension for google chrome, collaborators can pin almost any images that they can pull up on their browser. So there is no need to upload images or attach links. There is also a “heart” or “check” functionality so favorites can be marked. I use Pinterest mood boards to share my ideas for wardrobe and make up with models for my commercial photos. However I find these mood boards to be most helpful when trying to find out what the client likes such as for Engagement Photoshoots. I can easily pitch my ideas by pinning visual representations of my ideas and client can “like” them. Alternatively they can post what they had in mind by pinning images they find in google images or through Pinterest search.
I also want to add that even though this mood board is online, for clients who want to keep what is in their head away from the scrutiny of the public, you can designate mood boards as Private and only accessible to invited collaborators. Here is a sample of my public mood boards: https://www.pinterest.com/innovated/
