Portfolio Mood Board

Since I've been on a little mood board/inspiration kick this week I thought I'd share a mood board from my product design portfolio with you. For nearly four years I was the Designer of a Brand Development Department. One of my job responsibilities was to create seasonal trend boards for brand managers, editors, retailers, and licensees.

Ballet Dreams is a board I made to inspire a teen bedding collection. In person the board measured about 2' x 3' and was three dimensional, but it's hard to tell in the photo. Maybe this board will motivate you to pull some looks together and find fabrics, colors, and images that inspire you.

All the fabrics used on the boards were purchased at Mood Fabrics. Unfortunately I made this a while ago and do not have much credit information for the images, I am sorry. Top left: Michael Kors bathing suit, Top right: Balenciaga, Bottom right: Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker ad.

Courthouse Catherine

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of serving jury duty. I had to wake up super early, head down to Centre Street in lower Manhattan, then spend a day being questioned by lawyers and a second day sitting around waiting to be released. (<-Yay, no more jury duty for 6 years!) Although serving jury duty is not thrilling, it was exciting to walk into this Supreme Court landmark and feel like I was walking into a movie or the set of Law and Order.

Every time I pasted through these giant pillars I thought about the shading on my Catherine illustration. Is that strange? Probably, but then again, the classic columns of the courthouse and design of her gown do have the same Grecian inspiration source.

Lovely List: Design Ideas

Design inspiration can come from anywhere and anything. A blank piece of white paper and a pencil can be very daunting, sometimes it really helps to have a specific theme or inspiration source. I've assembled a list for you of possible design ideas to work from. (I actually LOVE making lists. There's so much satisfaction in checking something off a list!) Some of these were assignments of mine from college (FIT) and others I just came up and think could be fun.

• A collection inspired by costume history. Dig deep, how about a contemporary Egyptian inspired collection?
• Design a wardrobe for your favorite character from a book, film, television show, etc.
• Design a concert wardrobe for your favorite singer.
• Pick 2 opposing looks or ideas and meld them together, for example: Urban Quaker, Athletic Granny, Socialite Nun, or Biker Ballerina.
• Your favorite childhood outfit. I know you know the one! Why not use it as inspiration?
• Pick a country or a favorite vacation spot and google image your way to an inspired collection. Why not research Bali, Morocco, Israel or Switzerland and see what inspiration you may find.
• Chose a designer and a theme and design a collection as though you've just been hired as their head designer. One of my favorite projects from college is a collection I designed for "Bob Mackie inspired by Kabuki Couture".
• Create a mood board. Either base it around a theme, with one of the ideas listed above, or create a collection of images or swatches with a similar color scheme, or of papers and textures, like the one I have photographed here or in my previous post.

Design away, and see where the inspiration takes you!