moodboards | artisallaroundus

…call them what you like. Make them as fancy as you like. They can be a file of tear-sheets, fancy bulletin boards or elaborate almalgamations including 3D items. But it needs to be what you like, uncensored. The point of the exercise is to find out what you really, really like. Before you make any kind of decision involving anything visual, it is good to know what you really like. Perhaps this is where a counterexample comes in handy. I painted our back office in our old house Kelly Green. A fine color, but not me. I saw this amazing office in a magazine and I emulated it; even hunting down an accent fabric. It turns out I was really in love with the accent fabric, and the way the warm fabric played against the Kelly green. But it wasn’t really ‘me.’ I once read in a book on prayer not to ever thing you are ‘above’ the Lord’s prayer. Well, in the world of the visual creation, do not think you are above the moodboard. I almost made this mistake, thinking I knew myself pretty well. After all, I have collected tearsheets over YEARS now; I ought to know, right?

But when you see my large mood board, the themes are undeniable. I like lots of white! There are pops of color, and the warm-cool combinations I like so much. But there are mostly quiet tones. I also digress sometimes into rainbows; they are so happy. But the mood board helps me understand what quantities to use–as in, much white, little color. Also, it has kept me from getting too ‘glam’ in my furniture choices. I like humble, earthy, rough feel; nature and flowers inspire me. I LOVE sparkle and girly things, but usually in juxtaposition with something grounding, like a tree stump or a rock or a piece of coral.

I should mention that there is a censoring process once you’ve amassed a lot of images. For me, it consisted of moving items to the front of my original file. Items I wasn’t as taken with moved to the back. I realized that some things I liked because they were trendy or well-presented, some things I liked because they were ‘me.’ And those are the things I have always liked, deep down, and always will like. That isn’t to say our tastes don’t change somewhat overtime. What this exercise is meant to establish is a baseline.