setting the Mood™️ with a nice moodboard
(also known as "aesthetics," whichever you prefer)
One of my favorite things to do is putting together a moodboard (or aesthetic) of the stories I’m working on, not only to hype myself up, but to also use for positivity events and pitch events to convey atmosphere.
I’ve been told I’m pretty good at them, so I thought I’d share my process of making moodboards for those interested! (Originally this post was timed to land a week before Pitlight, but thanks to Elon Musk, that’s not possible anymore…)
The 3 x 3 moodboard is the one I make most, and is the type I’ll focus on in this post.
step one: brainstorm story elements
Before heading into Pinterest or Unsplash (my main sources for pictures), I do some thinking about what elements and atmosphere I’m aiming for.
Here are some things to consider:
What do your main characters look like?
If you have face claims, that makes things much simpler. However, if your characters are not white, it can be extra difficult to find pictures that resonate with you due to scarcity on these platforms.
So I think about the details of their appearance, such as what their hair is like, the rings on their hands, or their attire, and narrow my search to these specific elements.
I also consider the emotions the character holds, and often broaden my search to include illustrations and line-art figures that convey such a feeling.
What is your story’s setting?
Real world settings are obviously easier to search for, but for non-real world settings, you can narrow down to component elements: a red-brick wall, a shiny chrome surface, etc.
What items hold significance in your story?
What words or quotes are important in your story?
I suggest setting up an album wherever best suits you to keep pictures that work for your story; my Pinterest board for Poppies is so massive by now that I can usually find at least 2-3 pictures for a new moodboard from it with ease.
step two: color and atmosphere
To me, the main thing a moodboard needs to do is be pretty and catch the eye, and to convey atmosphere in a single glance. Rarely will people look at every single picture used or analyze every detail, so for me, the overall aesthetic takes precedence.
And that overall aesthetic and atmosphere stems from a color scheme.
Sometimes, I have one particular picture that inspires me, so I build the moodboard’s colors around it. Other times, I start from the colors I associate with a story. For instance, Poppies is pink, purple, and blue. For my YA horror, the colors are black, neon (street signs), green, and red.
The key is to find a harmonious set of colors. This might include winnowing down the colors you associate with your story, since it can be difficult to have different colors working well together.
Here are some color combos and examples:
Any color + white. This is simple and easy. I might add one tertiary color that goes well with the non-white color to create a little pop.
One color + other colors closely associated with it. For instance, out of my Poppies palette (pink, purple, red, blue), I can go with pink + purple, pink + red, pink + orange, purple + blue. All of these are easy to utilize together.
Combos that go well together: blue and silver, yellow and green, etc…whatever is harmonious to you. Some combos might need a bit of finessing. For instance, I really like this blue-with-pops-of-red moodboard I did, but it took me about two hours to find pics where the colors felt in sync…
All the colors! I usually add panels of white to provide a buffer between different colors, and use neutrals / middling colors to act as bridges.
step three: finding & tweaking pictures
As I download pictures, I look at them sitting together in my phone album frequently, to gauge if their ~vibe~ is cohesive: Am I mixing in photorealistic pictures with illustrated ones? Are some pictures soft and muted, while others are too saturated, too sharp? Are some blues too cyan, while the others veer purple?
I do some tweaking of individual pics (I fiddle with the exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation, and tint) to help with the cohesion, but tend to scrap lots of pictures as I continue my hunt if they don’t gel with the others.
Two things I do when I can’t find what I need:
I often resort to typing “x color aesthetic” into the Pinterest search bar just to find something to bring the colors together. I personally prefer a pretty appearance more than accuracy.
I use the app “Phonto” to add quotes/snippets onto appropriate pictures if I don’t want plain black words on a white background (of course, only put down as much as you’re comfortable with sharing publicly).
step four: arranging pictures & final touches
The app I use is the “LINE camera” app. It’s easy to use and is entirely free, with very few ads. There’s also a decent range of filters I’ll mention later.
I usually (not always) start with is a picture I want to be the focus. What image do I want people to notice immediately? What image, on its own, carries the atmosphere I want to convey? I throw that into the center, then build the moodboard around it.
There are some layouts I gravitate toward, and the key to all of them is symmetry. This is by no means a necessity, but symmetry is a bit of a shortcut (imo) to create a moodboard that’s pleasing to the eye.
Aside from the boards I shared above, where I set white panels at the four corners or arrange my colors so they form a gradient from dark to light, one layout I’ve used a lot is a checkerboard-ish style:
It’s really fast and clean to throw pictures into a grid like this. It does get boring to use so much white, though, and symmetry can be had with non-white colors:
However! I also love making moodboards that don’t rely on this, even if it does take a bit more finessing and moving things around, eg:
Aside from layouts I prefer, here are things I watch out for while arranging pictures:
I put space between similar elements to avoid the feeling of repetition. For instance, in the moodboard above, the quotes are at opposite corners. I spaced out the humanoid features so the similar ones (top left and bottom middle) wouldn’t be directly neighboring.
Empty space is great. I love including quotes on blank backgrounds or more open scenic shots, like clouds, because that loosens up the moodboard a bit, avoids clutter, and helps draw the viewer’s eye to the main pic.
Work on the flow between neighboring pics. I enlarge or rotate or move around pics until I feel it flows into the pictures neighboring it. It’s difficult to describe this process, but basically I try to avoid having them feel jarring beside each other.
Once I’m happy with the layout, I save/export the moodboard, then toss it back into my editing app to run it through a very light filter.
I don’t always do this, especially if I sync the pictures up beforehand by editing them, but adding a bit of a filter can tune the moodboard so everything looks more tied together. I personally avoid going too heavy on the filter, for a more natural look—but to each their own.
Finally, don’t forget to add alt text when posting! It’s important to go into detail with descriptions in order to allow people to have a visual in their minds.
Hopefully this was helpful! This is just how I create moodboards that are pleasing to my personal aesthetic taste, but everyone will have a different style and preference!