How to Make a Mood Board for Your Fashion Brand | Portfolio


Hi everyone, it’s Emily!

We live in a world where visuals, imagery and media are so important to growing a brand. Whether you are conveying your brand on Instagram on your website, or in a fashion portfolio, it is so important when trying to grow your brand to illustrate your origin, vision, goals, culture, and qualities through your content. In this video, I will go over how to accurately display your brand through a mood board and take you along as I assemble a mood board. 

So let’s get started! 

Mood Board Basics

A mood board is like a collage containing a variety of images, text, and other objects that define your brand and communicate your brand identity. Mood boards can be part of a professional portfolio or a jumping off point for a website or social media themes. Whether you’re just launching your business or rethinking your existing brand, a mood board is a valuable tool for inspiration, guidance, and communication. 

You can either make a digital mood board or a physical mood board. Physical mood boards are fun because you can utilize touch. I’d use a foam board base and spray mount images and materials to the surface. You can source your images from magazines, newspapers, old books, your own photos, or materials from a craft/art supply store, fabric store. 

I typically use digital because it’s easier for me to source images. Unsplash has beautiful, high quality images that are royalty free. Pinterest is also one of my favorites. You may know that if you have seen my other video on how to make a mood board. I like that they use trends from your search history or previous pins to show you similar images. Moodstream by Getty images is another one similar to Unsplash with lots of stock images. I haven’t used that one as much. 

To assemble a digital mood board I typically use photoshop on an iPad. A free option is also Adobe Draw, which I use on the iPad as well. Obviously you can use these on a desktop, too. 

Choosing Images for Your Brand

Too much imagery can be confusing and overload the senses, while too little won’t provide adequate direction or information. It’s about finding a balance. For a brand mood board, I would choose 5-7 images. 

You should know your target demographic. Millennials or seniors? Married couples or singles? Urban, suburban, or rural residents? Male or female? With that target market in mind, ask yourself what kind of imagery they might find appealing? What might capture their interest or grab their attention? Those are the images you want to seek out and select. 

You need to know what qualities you want your target market to feel when looking at these images. Your brand may identify with bravery, strength, leadership, energy, serenity, playfulness or seriousness, simplicity or sophistication, feistiness or calm. For example, with my brand I want to convey luxury, timelessness, elegance and nostalgia. For nostalgia I might seek out vintage photos. I would recommend starting a mood board on Pinterest for each quality you want to convey. 

classic brand - pinterest

You can see images here that say “Classic” to me. Another tip is not to choose images where there are other brands’ clothes, especially statement clothes. Because you are a fashion brand and you don’t want to confuse people. 

You also want to consider colors. What colors are you going to use consistently? What do those colors convey to you? I consistently use black and white, as well as neutrals to convey timelessness, minimalism, and calmness. Don’t be afraid to include artwork or words, textures or patterns as well. 

Once you have chosen images, position them on your mood board. Concentrate on key themes with larger images, and place smaller images or materials around those to support your message. Pay attention to how your eye is moving from one image to another. You can even show it to a friend and ask them where their attention is focused on the board. 

mood board - fashion design tutorial

Producing a mood board for your new fashion brand is an ideal first step to help with business development. It will prove useful as a guide when you begin creating your company’s marketing, taking it from mood board to something as impactful and memorable as this brand identity package.

Comment below if you’d like me to do more videos on mood boards. Subscribe to my channel and click the bell to get notified when I upload new videos every Friday. Thanks for watching and have a great day!

Watch the full YouTube video here:


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