What?
What is a moodboard?
Well, it's simply the best tool in the world to communicate your vision!
Also referred to as a reference board or inspiration board, it's a tool to explore your creative vision and communicate your ideas with the world using pictures.
A moodboard does exactly what its name says - it represents the mood you want to achieve in your book, providing references and inspiration.
Is it 100% necessary for working on your self-published book? No, it's just a handy addition! But if you're just starting out or new to the picture book world, it can help you tremendously in various aspects:
You can better understand the project you're working on and stumble across some unexpected discoveries.
Looking for inspiration allows you to explore the best examples in the industry.
It's a great way to communicate with your illustrator and designers.
It's a creative process; you'll enjoy diving into imaginary worlds and slowly building yours.
You can keep it close and get back to it when your motivation lowers down and you need some inspiration injection.
What can you use for your moodboard?
Literally, anything that helps you create a desired aesthetic! Books, animation, movies, photography, your own family archives of photos and videos.
Where?
My favorite tool to create moodboards is Pinterest. You can add new items to your board with just one click, keep everything in the same place, and easily share it with anyone. Pinterest allows you to create "secret boards," so don't worry, nobody will see what you're creating unless you share a link with them.
If you're a regular Instagram user, you can create your mood board in your saved images. Then, to share it with someone, you will need to make screenshots of your private collection.
Another great way to collect visual inspiration is to create Google Photos albums; they also can be private and shared via link.
If you're more old school, a good old collage is always an option!
The important thing is to find the tool you are comfortable using and a technique that gets your creative juices flowing!
How?
To start, think about some detail from your story that you have a very particular vision of. For example, when I was working on "Grouchy Mom", I needed references for a little girl's bedroom, and in 30 seconds on Pinterest, I got my first image! In 20 more minutes, I had my moodboard full. Here it is:
And here are a couple of pages from the book:
"Grouchy Mom" By Rebecca Ventre
You can clearly notice where my inspiration for interior design came from!
Be greedy! In the beginning, gather everything related to your future picture book - color schemes, character design, sketches and illustrations, pictures of handmade items, fashion, typography samples, postcards, etc., etc.
Later, you can remove all "extra" material and keep the most important and representative. If your story is specific to some culture or time period, gather references of everyday things that may appear in your illustrations. Pay attention to the colors; they play a huge role in the perception of your story!
So, embrace the creative process, gather your inspirations, and let your moodboard guide you on this exciting adventure of bringing your envisioned world to life!
P.s
Why I don't recommend using AI tools for references.
This is really simple - when an artist searches for references and looks at other artists' work, we seek solutions to the problems we're having. Lighting, composition, color combination - everybody solves these problems differently, and looking at each other's work, we learn from one another.
AI doesn't solve any problems; it just copies what was done by others without thinking about it. That's when the third arm can appear as a compositional solution, for example. Also, your moodboard should represent the "mood," and machines usually don't have a mood, you know, they're machines.