Designing Mood Boards Using Canva
When I was designing full-time, I would always love using Mood Boards to show clients the direction I was going with a project. The furniture, art, accessories and colours evenly distributed and well placed to give a simulated look of a room, trying to manage clients expectations. Every once in a while a staging client [usually someone who has never used vacant staging services before], will ask me to show some pictures of the furniture I was proposing to use. Back in the day, I could pop out a pretty good looking Mood Board using PowerPoint. I made a ‘template’ so that each time I wanted to make a new Board, the set-up was already done…and the look was on-brand and consistent. I think this really helps clients who may have a hard time envisioning something other than what they know and are familiar with, maybe what they already have in their own home.
So, I’ve dipped my toes back into some design jobs, specifically AirBnB’s…which I think compliments my staging business nicely. They are pretty quick in and out jobs. You spend a little more time on the kitchen and baths and then get to the fun stuff…buying furniture, art + accessories!
As I was putting together some thoughts for my AirBnB client, I thought it would be nice to layout some visuals. I looked through Canva to see what document styles would be best and found that they have Mood Boards! I love the Canva templates! There are so many styles to choose from! It’s even easier now that I had a little Branding kit made for my business. I have my fonts and colours bookmarked, so as I set-up the Mood Board, I can effortlessly have a consistent on-brand look every-time!
The way I have been using the Canva Mood Boards for my AirBnB designs is different than the PowerPoint ones from previous years. Now, instead of trying to capture the look of a room, I try and get a feel for the details of the space and how the colours and ideas will flow throughout the home. Art, texture, colour and architectural nuances.
What was once the difficult part…how to organize, size and place the photos [the template] is now the easy part. Now, what takes some time is selecting photos with the same colouring and the right order that they should be placed in. For that, a little hack is recolouring the photos in the free Light Room app with a photo preset. That way all of the photos have the same look and feel. Of coarse, this will help to bring home your big design reveal to your client. So everything has a smooth, cohesive look to your presentation.
In addition to being able to give my client a snapshot of the vision with colours, textures and some architectural interest in small bite-sized pics…I have some great visuals that I can easily turn into a post for social media [or even a blog]!