One of the most rewarding parts of starting your salon suite journey is creating your brand within your suite. Decorating your space to reflect YOU starts with a mood board and here is a step by step guide on how to do that.
When you sign you lease for you new salon suite, decorating your suite is the fun party, but can be overwhelming for some. A mood board is one of the most effective tools to bring your ideas to life and to hone your brand. Putting together a collage of images, textures, colors, and other design elements that visually represent the atmosphere or feeling you want to convey will help guide your purchases and design decisions. It serves as a creative blueprint that helps you organize and clarify your vision before diving into execution.
In this post, we’ll walk through the process of creating a mood board—from gathering inspiration to fine-tuning the details—so you can develop a clear visual direction for your salon suite.
What Is a Salon Suite Mood Board?
A mood board is essentially a visual summary that encapsulates the mood, style, and tone of a project. It could be a physical board with magazine cutouts and fabric swatches or a digital collage made with online tools.
Benefits of a Mood Board:
Clarifies your vision: A mood board helps you refine and communicate your ideas clearly.
Inspires creativity: The process of gathering diverse elements can spark new ideas.
Sets a tone: It helps you establish a cohesive style or theme from the beginning.
Guides decision-making: When you’re faced with choices, the mood board serves as a reference to stay on track with your vision.
Step 1: Define the Esthetic, Vibe and Theme of Your Suite
Before you start gathering images, it's important to understand the goal of your mood board. What do you want your salon suite to feel like to your clients, and what do you want to communicate through your design esthetic? Setting a clear intention will guide your selection of images and ensure your board remains focused.
For example:
Esthetic: Think about the overall atmosphere you want to create—cozy, airy, modern, rustic, etc.
Vibe: You might focus on the feeling you're trying to evoke, such as “playful and energetic” or “calming and restorative.”
Theme: Your theme might be "boho chic," "vintage elegance," or "modern minimalism."
Nail down your core ideas or concepts, as this will influence every piece of the mood board you create.
Step 2: Gather Inspiration
Now that you have a clear direction, it's time to collect images, colors, textures, and typography that align with your theme. The goal here is to curate a variety of elements that represent your vision.
Here are a few sources of inspiration:
Pinterest: This is an excellent tool for collecting and organizing images. You can search by keywords, themes, or styles.
Magazines: For a tactile approach, flip through design, fashion, or lifestyle magazines to find photographs and illustrations.
Nature & Travel: Photos from nature or travel destinations can be rich with color palettes and textures.
Mood-evoking photography: Look for photographs that capture the emotion you want to convey, whether it’s tranquility, excitement, or sophistication.
Textures and materials: Think beyond images—swatches of fabric, paint samples, wood grains, or stone textures can add depth to your board.
Typography and patterns: If your project involves text, explore different fonts and patterns that align with the feel you're aiming for.
The more variety you gather, the better. You can always refine and narrow things down later, but for now, focus on collecting as many visuals as possible that evoke the mood you want to express.
Step 3: Choose Your Platform
Mood boards can be either physical or digital, depending on your preferences and the project’s needs. Here are a few options:
Physical Mood Boards:
Corkboards: Pin or tape images, fabric swatches, and other materials.
Poster boards: Arrange cutouts on a large, sturdy surface and glue them in place.
Bulletin boards: A small version of a corkboard, ideal for projects with fewer elements.
Digital Mood Boards:
Canva: A user-friendly tool with templates for creating mood boards and visual collages.
Adobe Spark: Another great tool for putting together digital boards, especially if you want to incorporate custom text or shapes.
Pinterest: Create a secret board and pin all of your inspirational images there.
Milanote: A flexible online tool that’s great for mood boards, mind maps, and creative projects.
Moodboard (app): This app allows you to easily drag and drop images and organize them digitally.
Both physical and digital boards have their advantages, so choose the one that fits your workflow. If you’re a tactile person who loves the physical act of cutting, gluing, and arranging, a physical mood board might be more rewarding. Digital boards, on the other hand, offer more flexibility for making adjustments and sharing with collaborators.
Step 4: Organize and Arrange Your Elements
Once you have your materials gathered, it’s time to begin arranging them on your mood board. Start by laying out the images and elements loosely without committing to a final placement. Play around with different groupings and combinations to see what feels right.
Here are a few tips to keep in mind:
Create visual flow: Arrange the items in a way that leads the eye naturally across the board. This could be through color gradients, thematic groupings, or a focal point.
Limit the color palette: While you want to include variety, it’s helpful to keep your colors coordinated. Select 3–5 main colors that will dominate your design.
Include key elements: Highlight the most important aspects of your project—whether it’s a particular texture, font, or image that captures your vision.
Leave room for refinement: Don’t feel like everything needs to be perfect at this stage. Mood boards are meant to evolve.
Step 5: Refine and Edit
After your board is assembled, step back and evaluate it with fresh eyes. Is the overall mood coming through? Does the board feel cohesive? You might want to remove images that don’t quite fit or add new ones to fill any gaps. The goal is to refine it until it feels like the visual representation of your concept.
Trim the excess: Remove any images that feel out of place or distract from the main theme.
Enhance the focus: If something important is getting lost, emphasize it by making it larger, bolder, or more prominent in the layout.
Balance the elements: Ensure that your board has a nice balance between imagery, negative space, and colors.
Step 6: Use Your Mood Board for Your Salon Suite Inspiration and Guidance
Your salon suite mood board is now ready! Use it as a reference point throughout your process as you decorate, create your logo, design your social media pages, and more. It’s a great tool to keep your decisions aligned with your original vision, especially when you're faced with multiple options or creative challenges.
If you're going into a suites with someone else, a mood board is a great way to coordinate your visions and get on the same page. Share your mood board and be honest with each other as you build your brand.
Final Thoughts
Creating a mood board is an enjoyable and powerful exercise for visualizing and organizing your creative ideas. With a mood board as your foundation, you’ll feel more confident as you move forward with the next steps of your project.
Happy creating! ✨
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