The work, the thoughts, the life of Matthew Todd Spiel*

I am currently working on a project for a real-estate agent in the Orange County area. It was great how this project came about because I can safely say it was a direct result of my website (and this means I have accomplished one of my goals via this site: generate income). I just finished up the wireframe process and am waiting to hear back from the client and I thought that it might be a good thing to try out a new step in my design process: Mood Boards. Normally I would just move right into the visual prototyping stage, but I think I am going to try and put that off for a few more days until I can get a visual pallet established outside of Photoshop.

Mood boards seem to be on the rise. More and more agencies are beginning to pick up on their value. They can prove to be a very helpful step within a design process in that they can establish the over all look and feel (the mood) of a specific project without effecting the specifics of the layout. You can very easily help clients set colors, establish fonts, decide for and against style of photos without ever having get into layout issues. Sounds like a win-win to me.

I have linked to a few really good articles on mood boarding. There is also a link to a Flickr pool that is made up of different designers mood board. Great source of inspiration.

• Website Mood Boards: A Successful Precursor to Visual Prototyping
• Why Mood Boards Matter
• Inspiration Boards on Flickr

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