At the start of every project we will liaise with the client and ideally have a site visit. We'll assess the rooms and discuss desires and styles, budgets and aims, then once commissioned as the working interior designer we will always recommend starting the project form a practical point of view with a mood board.

Mood boards are not only incredibly useful for focussing the client wishes as well as driving the design style, but they are fun to make and very important.

Getting the flavour of a design is essential for successful project completion. It is very hard to always get across the broad range of materials, finishes, styles and colours with simply words, and although a client may site well know designers or products as a source of inspiration, establishing what precisely they like about these in words can be very tricky.

Who's mood board, Angela's or mine?

Good question! Ultimately we would like to think that we will create a mood board for clients which capture the essence of what we are after. However, most of our projects have involved clients working on either their own interior design mood board or together with us on our pro version. We will use a range of tools from electronic design applications such as Photoshop and other Adobe design products, as well as good old fashioned cut and paste onto big sheets of paper. The greater the planning budget for an interior project, the greater the result from a mood board.

We'll implement textures and patterns as well as swatches and many clients will source colours they like from paint manufacturers and historic paints, photographs, cut-outs from interior magazines. The broader the source of inspiration on the boards inevitably the greater the result not only here but of course the final project.

We've tried to demonstrate some of our more successful boards and related projects on these pages. We are not at liberty to display all of the projects we have worked on as discretion and copyright can be issued however we hope you find enough inspiration to start your own mood board and ultimately complete a design project to your satisfaction! Enjoy.

Simple Ways to Begin A Design Mood Board

A group of words seem to be impeccably inadequate when explaining visual design. “The sky was filled with an explosion of yellow” doesn’t really capture the essence of the scene as quickly as say, a photo does. Creating a mood board is another exceptional method of documenting scenarios effectively and is often a useful and inventive way to help visualize the effect or style you are aiming to achieve for your interior design.

In general, mood boards are easy to prepare and implement. (Don't forget you can always order free samples such as from B&Q shutters samples or pop in to super stores and pick up fabric swatches for free!)Creating one the old-fashioned way is easy - simply get a large sheet of paper and start to collect snippets and cutouts from media such as packaging, newspapers and interior magazines. You can also utilize natural sources, such as flowers and leaves - anything to help you document your ideas! Depending on your style and taste - your moodboard will grow and develop over time – almost every time I make one I learn something new about colour combinations, materials and how different ideas can react together.

If you have a team who are involved with your project, you could always ask them to contribute and research material you might not have the time to search through. A mood board can be developed over a group of people, can induce discussion and debate - and at the end of the day if you are convincing your partner that your ideas far outshine theirs - then creating a mood board is one of the best and most cost effective solutions and gives you the perfect excuse for popping down the shops to buy up all the latest interior design magazines! If you are involved in a debate with your partner - pushing your feature colour bright red walls, then going out, buying the paint and decorating your room may seem like a great idea, but we know in practice a healthy debate over a well planned mood board can be a much softer approach and almost always wins the argument! Having a mood board in place will also help when you want to buy your interiors - as you will know where to get some of them!

Modern methods of creating mood boards can also be used and as well as being convenient, can also be exceptionally useful to plump out your mood board. Taking photos on your phone or digital camera, (I am snapping away everywhere I go, including cafe’s, museums, walks everywhere really) using creative software on your computer or even flicking through websites to find textures, patterns and colours which suit are usable technologies which could add original or unusual material. A digital mood board works almost as well, but I have to say I still prefer the ability to see some texture and finishes like the old school days.

As the collection process continues and you have a fairly comprehensive collection of materials, the mood board can offer an influential reminder for the overall direction of your project and can work as an inspiring stimulus for you or the team involved. Your interior design will never be the same again.

I will be looking more at some mood boards over the next few weeks so call back often and we’ll try and inspire you some more. Don’t forget that if you are looking for an interior designer with great experience to get in touch and we can swap ideas or simply have a chat with a view to employing me for your interior project.