Design Tips: How to Create Perfect Project Mood boards in Procreate

Procreate

27 Feb

The planning and inspiration collection phase of any project is my personal favorite part - I love scrolling through Pinterest, collecting the perfect images to capture the vibe for my clients and help bring their vision to life. While there are so many ways to plan your design and illustration project, I really think that Procreate is often overlooked as the perfect mood board builder; it's the place I start with all my projects because it allows me to make my mood boards more than just a collection of images pasted from the internet. Keep reading to learn my top tips…

How to create perfect project mood boards in Procreate

Turn on page assist
I never create just one mood board for a project, nor should you be trying to squeeze all your ideas and inspiration onto one page. Use Procreate's 'Page Assist' feature to turn your canvas into a sketchbook, where each layer or group of layers becomes a new page in your plans. You can then export all your pages as a PDF for your clients or print them out for your studio walls.

Add notes, keywords & annotations
Imagery is great, but one of my favorite things about creating mood boards in Procreate is being able to add my own notes, thoughts, and ideas directly onto the page and around my inspiration images so I remember why everything is there. This is also super helpful if you intend on sharing your mood boards with others involved in the project.

Add your initial sketches
Mood boards are spaces for your ideas to start moving from your head to paper (even if it is digital paper) - something I think people don’t do enough is start their initial sketches and ideas directly on their mood boards. If something pops into your head as you are gathering inspiration, sketch it out and let it live alongside your notes and imagery.

Collect colour
As you fill out your mood board, use the color picker tool (hold down with a finger or your Apple Pencil) to start pulling colors out and building an initial color palette. Grab your favorite brush and add these colors as swatches on the side of your mood board to start curating the visual vibe of the project.