If you’re anything like me, you always have a stack of fashion magazines laying around. I’m not sure what it is but I can never bring myself to throw away a magazine, no matter how many times I have read it cover to cover.
While I was home during quarantine I had a three-foot tall stack of magazines staring at me for weeks, unsure what to do with them all. Then one day I went through every issue of Vogue, InStyle and Elle Magazine from the last year and a half and just started ripping out pages. Whenever I saw a quote, photo, or even a font that inspired me in some way, I ripped it out.
Once my three-foot stack on magazines had shrunk down to about three inches of pages, I started cutting out the specific things on each page I was inspired by. There are no rules to moodboarding, you can keep a theme if you’d like or you can simply make a collage you think is pretty. I chose to make my moodboard more of a “manifest board” – things I wanted for my life. I plan on working in the entertainment industry and have a strong interest in fashion I want to incorporate into my career so I cut out things like a photo from Kelly Clarkson’s talk show and a graphic about red carpet coverage at the Oscars. For the background of my board, I chose large photos of places I’d like to go – the Manhattan skyline because I’ve always loved Manhattan and want to live there at some point post graduation, and London because it’s a weird dream of mine to work there for a couple years.
After I chose all of the photos I wanted to use, I went and grabbed an old cardboard box from my garage (I didn’t want to buy a posterboard if I didn’t have to!) and got to work.
I love my moodboard because it’s a pretty piece of wall art, it’s made out of fully recycled materials, and it’s something I can look at every single day and be inspired by – it’s nice to have a reminder of what you’re working towards!
As I said earlier, your moodboard doesn’t have to be full of your goals and aspirations like mine is – that’s the beauty of it! It can be whatever you want it to be. Moodboarding is a great way to spend some time away from your electronics and just create something.