Please note that this post may contain affiliate links and any sales made through such links will reward us a small commission – at no extra cost for you.
Learning how to make a digital mood board is a great way to curate your personal style, bring life to your visual ideas, and fall in love with your wardrobe. Because after all, the first step to loving your style is knowing what it is. So before you complete the checkout for all your online shopping carts, create a mood board design instead. The best design software to do this with is Canva. And don’t worry if you’re not tech-minded; you can still create something stunning. There is a free version of Canva that has many useful features to get you started, like a free mood board template, visual elements (shapes, arrows, etc), and different fonts. Want to learn more? Here is a step-by-step guide on how to create a mood board on Canva.
1. Open Canva
The first thing you need to do is type “mood board” in the search bar of the Canva home page. Once you click search, you will be transported to a page with thousands of professionally made mood board templates.
Some will be free if you have a free Canva account and other templates will have a crown icon for the Canva Pro version. I use Canva daily so I do recommend the pro version, but I know it’s not necessary for everyone.
2. Pick a Mood Board Template
The next step is to pick the mood board that speaks to you the most. Which one will provide you with the clearest way to organize your fashion ideas? Some mood boards are for interior design projects, but you can easily customize them to suit your style needs.
3. Name Your Mood Board
Come up with a name for your mood board to help set the tone and direction. Pick a name that best fits what you want your personal style or life aesthetic to be. For example, “Coffee in Paris” or “A European Summer”.
Your mood board could also feature descriptive words to support the title of the board and to help you visualize the type of clothes you should focus on. These keywords words could be “classic, chic, feminine, and fun.”
Need more ideas on what your style could be? I created a course to help you discover, define, and LOVE your personal style!
4. Pick Different Font Combinations
Make your creative project look fun by using different fun and elegant fonts that will complement your design. You can find the fonts on the white toolbar on your left.
There is a wide selection of fonts to choose from, but don’t feel overwhelmed. You don’t need to find a perfect font, just something that inspires you! To make your search easier, type the style you are looking for. For example, if your dream style is Free People, vintage, and bohemian and you want some retro fonts, type “retro” in the search bar and you will be provided with retro fonts.
5. Customize Your Text with Effects
Bring more life to your texts with effects. You can find this tool on the top right of the screen. Once you click “effects”, you will see different options you can choose from. The first one is style and this allows you to pick a particular style to suit the mood of your digital collages.
Your text can get a neon effect if you have a party style or the shadow effect to make your text stand out. The last effect is “shape”. Give your text a curved shape to make your text look fun.
6. Choose a Color Scheme/Color Swatches
A mood board template with a color palette is a great starting point if you feel stuck. At this step, you want to select your colors to pull your mood board (and wardrobe) together and make it look cohesive. If you already have set wardrobe colors, then select what you already have. This is just a fun refresh for you!
You can pick the color swatches for the mood board on the left side panel by clicking on the color tool. Alternatively, Canva can help you can pick a color scheme based on the images in your mood board. This tool is called the “color palette generator.” Upload images and it will use the hues from the picture to generate a color palette for you.
7. Use Grids or Frames for a Structured Look
A pro tip for making your fashion mood board look structured and professional is with grids or frames. From a simple four-grid frame to complex 6-grid arrangements, you have many options.
Play around with the grids by layering different design elements on top of one another. Or give your grid a unique style by filling it with different colors. Another good idea would be to layer on descriptive text, such as the keywords you want your wardrobe to reflect.
8. Use Stock Images for Fabrics, Textures, and Trims
This is a fun way to make your mood board pop! Use free photos of fabrics like denim to set the tone for your inspiration. You can find additional free images in elements. To use, type in the fabric or texture you want in the search bar and the search results will show you graphics or real photos of the fabric.
What do you love? What inspires you? Whether it’s gold satin sheets or stripes, add elements that speak to your dream life or style aesthetic.
9. Upload Media
This is when your mood board really starts to feel personalized! It’s time to add pictures. Whether you found some inspirational pictures from your Pinterest board, outfit idea screenshots from J.Crew, or have a few selfies of your favorite outfit on your camera roll, it’s time to upload images from your computer.
10. Resize Images
For fashion mood boards, the bigger image usually signifies the importance of the picture. So when creating your mood board on Canva, make the important picture to you bigger and the less important ones smaller.
Click the element or image, click any of the resize handles on the corners of the selected elements, and drag it in or out to resize.
11. Play With Different Elements
One of the many reasons why Canva is the best place to make mood boards is because of the wide variety of elements. Give your mood board some character with cute graphics that are related to the objective of your design!
For example, if you are doing a “Parisian Chic” theme, you can search for Eiffel Tower graphics, croissants, or coffee mugs to decorate your mood board.
12. Rearranging Element Layers
Layer on your graphics, images, and texts by selecting from the forward, backward, bring to front, or send to back options. Options may differ depending on the order of layers on your mood board design. This is a fantastic tool for fashion mood boards because they look more professional when images are layered.
12. Use the Background Remover Tool
This is the perfect feature to use if you want to give your mood board a magazine cut-out look. To remove the background, click on the image, and select “edit image” on the white toolbar. Click background remover, and once it has been erased, press “apply”.
If you have a free account you may not be able to use this feature. A pro account is worth it, but you can still create an inspiring mood board without it!
Knowing how to create a mood board on Canva is the best way to set the visual direction for your style. And though creating a physical mood board is a fun activity and one we love to do too, creating a fashion mood board online has more options and saves time.
Whew, you did it. Way to go! Now you’re going to need fashion inspiration for your mood board. Here are some street styles to inspire you! Up Next: 20 Parisian Outfits I Captured on the Street, Part 1
