Enchanted, delicate and precious wall cladding seem to come from a lacemaker in Burano island and take inspiration from the Venetian art and architecture. As if it was refined lace, Merletto and Rondò radiate their beauty that is possible thanks to the high capacity of marble processing and the usage of avanguarda technologies. The results are “embroideries” on marble with perfect proportions, hatched by precious weaving that are able to create persuasive elegant moods that draw on the walls. And here Merletto, where roundish lines follow each other, where true bas-relief laces shine for details that give the sensation of true wire weaves. And then Rondò that evokes the recurrent decorative leitmotiv of the Venetian Serenissima Republique. Rondò and Merletto are available in many marble colors, from the white to dark ones.
Developed by FilzFelt and Gensler’s LA office, “Link” modular felt panels can be used for a variety of applications, from room partitioning, to shading, to acoustical dampening, to adding textural interest to a wall surface. The panels were designed to tackle a particular design problem at Gensler’s LA office, where red glazed panels acting as an architectural statement to be viewed from the street had been casting a harsh light into the interior conference room space behind. Searching for a flexible, free-form solution, and a soft material to contrast with the hard glass, Gensler designers discovered wool felt. Enter “Link.”
“While developing Link, the design team played with a range of materials, but in time we realized the warmth, durability, and acoustical properties offered by a wool felt product was the right decision,” commented Daniel Stromborg, Gensler’s Firmwide Product Design Practice Area Leader, on the use of the material. “It became clear that FilzFelt was the perfect partnership for the design.”
Inspired by the negative spaces created from tree canopies, the 3 millimeter Wool Design Felt panels are CNC milled to create perforations of varying quantity, and tabbed so attaching one to another is as simple as sliding the felt into place. The hexagonal panels come in five transparency options ranging from 0 to 80 percent transparency and are available in 63 colors.
“The tab and slot connections create an unexpected three dimensionality and secondary patterning that is quite striking.” added FilzFelt’s Vice President of Design Kelly Smith. “The modular construction allows multiple colors to be used within a panel which is something we were not able to offer previously.” Because they don’t require hardware to attach to one another, “Link” systems can grow or shrink quickly, and different arrangements can be set-up at moment’s notice for various applications.
BREWERIES! Fietje Beer Bar by Bertrand Guillon Architecture, Marseille – France
December 15th, 2015 by retail design blog
Fietje (noun): the distinctive sound made by the emission of carbon dioxide when opening a bottle of beer. In 2014, Vanessa Ghodbane, the owner of a beer cellar located at 36 rue des Freres Barthelemy – 13006 Marseille, decided to open a new beer bar that would be more focused on tasting. It is from the coined word FIETJE that the project owner set the tone. On the demand of this bouncy inhabitant of Brussels it was necessary to imagine a place matching her image: dynamic, original and ready to break the codes of traditional pubs all rooted in the collective imagination. As soon as they started working on the project Vanessa Ghodbane and Bertrand Guillon agreed on the necessity to propose something different from the traditional pub model and offer the patrons a new and surprising place. They pictured a refined and elegant pub, breaking the traditional codes but keeping in mind how cosy and friendly the place should be.
Located in a former furniture store, the place was initially characterized by an outdated layout composed of white melamine for insulation, a wide ceiling and rustic tiles. However behind these stern appearances hid a much more interesting and original structure which was typical of warehouses built on the old port of Marseille in the 17th century: a 4-meter high ceiling with exposed beams and supported by walls out of stones or flat bricks – elements that would be highlighted in order to give the pub its new identity.
At the street level, the place opens to an apparent covered terrace or an intimate space of transition between the street and the inside. The main room features the regained outdated ceiling and the setting of a tension between gross side walls in stone and a pristine white wall in the middle of which a yellow alcove faces zelliges used for the midway panel of the bar, from which emerge the ten draft beer taps presented to the patrons on a monolithic white Corian countertop. Behind the bar, the access to the washrooms and the room hosting the stock and the machinery of the draft beers.
The furniture and light fixture were mostly designed and made-to-measure; the metal-leg tables were made by local craftsmen out of solid oak tops and the glass suspensions were blown by Italian glassmakers while the chairs were bought from Marseille traditional flea market merchants. The wide place and its relation to light but also the chosen materials shape a peculiar identity to the place, where the customer can be surprised and offered a unique experience in Marseille.
24 pro tips for creating inspirational mood boards
Mood boards can be a great way to convey your design idea, win pitches and get an early sign-off. Follow our expert advice on how to create them.
Here we explore mood boards – what they are, how can they help, and how you make one. When trying to convey a design idea, moods, feelings and fluffy stuff like that are hard to communicate. So professional designers will often use mood boards: a collection of textures, images and text related to a design theme as a reference point.
Telepathy would save a lot of time but sadly for most of us it's not an option. What I'm thinking and feeling about a creative idea, my intended vision for a piece of work, is limited to how good my verbal communication skills are at expressing this to project stakeholders. Mood boards help others to 'get inside our heads' in order to convey a thematic setting for a design or to explain function in piece of work.
That said, mood boards can be a pain to create, with many hours spent trawling image galleries, websites, books and magazines looking for that perfect image to sum up your intended feel for the work at hand. So here are a collection of tips to help make your mood board making more effective – and double your chances of winning that pitch!
Gathering inspiration
01. Look beyond the digital world
Made by Many used copies of Picture Post to inspire their redesign of the ITV News site
When putting together mood boards, it's easy (and therefore tempting) to just use Google Images. But just because you're working on a digital product, don't just look for digital-based inspiration. For example, whilst working on the ITV news website, digital innovators Made by Many looked at copies of the veteran Picture Post magazine in order to express how powerful and effective an image plus a caption can be for telling a news story.
Real world inspiration such as this can be a very powerful 'convincer' when putting together a board for a client.
02. Take pictures when you're out
Real world inspirations are all around us. So use the camera on your phone to take pictures of everything you see that inspires you - whether that be a bird in flight, a great use of typography on a sign, or the brickwork on a building. They don't have to be great photos in the traditional sense – it's all about capturing thoughts, impressions, themes and feelings.
Creating the mood board
03. The basic concept
What you leave out is as important as what you choose
Have you ever had the misfortune of going to a gallery exhibition and it just not doing anything for you? You weren't 'touched' by the exhibition or 'moved' by what was on show – and other similar emotive profusions. It's very easy to shove a load of stuff together and call it an exhibition; it's an absolute talent to curate threads and synergies between works and call it an exhibition.
When putting together mood boards, think of yourself as a curator rather than a collector, and try to have meaning and threads from one image to the next. It makes for easier interpretation.
04. Choose the right format
A mood board for Unicef
Find out at the outset whether your mood board is going to be presented in person or emailed to the client. The answer will decide whether you produce an offline or online mood board. The distinction is not trivial: the two formats demand very different approaches.
An offline mood board will generally be looser in style and require the extra kick and emotive spark that comes from it being presented to a client. An online mood board should be tighter and will generally need to work harder to convey a theme or style.
The finished UNICEF design
05. Build things up around a large image
Whether it's being electronic or physical, the layout of your mood board needs to give prominence to key theme images, then surround these with smaller supporting images that enhance the theme.
Again, it's a subliminal trick. When someone looks at a large image on your board in their heads they'll have questions about it – which they'll quickly scan the rest of the board to find answers for. If you place smaller supporting images around the larger image they should do this job for you by clarifying the messaging given in the larger one.
06. Get tactile
When making a physical mood board, don't be afraid to get, well, physical. Traditionally mood boards are made from foam board and cutting this stuff up with a scalpel and spray mounting cut-out images onto it can be a pain, especially if you're not dexterous with a blade. But it's extremely effective as a presentation tool. The tactile nature of cut-out images glued onto boards enhances the emotiveness of what's being explained.
It may seem like a ridiculously old fashioned thing to do, but perception-wise it's a real ace up your sleeve as a designer. Just be careful with your fingers on that blade...
How to pitch mood boards
07. Show your mood board early
Mood images for a Daft Punk packaging design
Generally mood boards are considered to be separate to pitch or presentation work; they stand alone to show mood and tone. This is standard practice, but consider instead making thempart of your pitch or presentation. Remember, you're trying to use subliminal visual tricks to make a client 'get it'.
In this example Luke Prowse and I used mood images (such as shots of 2001: A Space Odyssey and a builder's hard hat) to show the kind of grandeur and style we wanted to associate with a pitch for a Daft Punk packaging design.
Mixing these in with the presentation – rather than bolting them on at the end – proved more effective in communicating this to the client.
Combining the mood images with the presentation helped win the pitch
08. Save the surprise
It's important to make sure that a well-meaning project manager doesn't email an offline mood board ahead of the presentation 'so they know what we're presenting'. For an offline mood board it's far better to let it all sink in to the client's mind as you showcase it, rather than come armed with lots of questions before you even start.
09. Get involved in the pitch
If your mood board is being presented to the client, try to be involved yourself. It makes no sense to have something which originated in your head being communicated by someone else, because that way meaning can become muddled in a Chinese whispers-type mess.
10. Keep things loose
Locking an idea or a style down in a mood board can be detrimental, as the client will feel shoehorned into going with a particular style. Keep everything a little loose and don't make everything look too finalised.
If you're using preview images from image libraries don't worry about the watermarking on them – it all adds up to a 'hey look, we can change this – these are ideas' feel to the board.
11. Watch the audience's faces
When you're presenting an offline mood board, watch the faces of those you're showing it to. Ignore any verbal client 'oohs and ahhs' but instead watch their facial and emotive reactions as they look around the board. This will give you a much more honest take on whether the board is doing its job and if they're reacting well or badly to what you're showing them. You have to put these people 'in your mood' so ignore their mutterings and watch their emotive reactions.
General pointers
12. Hone your mood board skills
Brand gurus Landor Associates use a form of mood board to showcase themselves to other members of the team. Formed of nine images in a 3x3 grid, it gives their fellow work colleagues an insight into what that person is like; their interests, loves, passions, cares and worries. If you ever want to test out your mood boarding skills – the ultimate challenge at making mood boards – try this out and showcase it to your colleagues.
13. Text it up
Don't ignore the power of a few isolated words on a board. They're fantastic show-stoppers and give your viewer pause for thought as they have to mentally read what's in front of them. Big, bold words juxtaposed together work very well at creating drama, tone and meaning for any project.
14. Make the theme obvious
Obscure references can be fun but try to have a number of relatable items or 'touch points' featured in your mood board. You want to let others in, so being deliberately obtuse will earn you no points at all. It's much harder to be clear and use imagery to sell your vision than hiding behind a pile of incomprehensible references just to fill the board out with. But it's worth the effort to do so.
15. Aim to spark an emotional response
Think a little bit left of centre if you're presenting a mood board to a client. What would give them a genuine emotive response to? Real word objects are good for this. If you were inspired by the beach, bring in a shell. If your eureka moment happened on the bus, bring in the ticket. This type of thing intrigues people's brains and gains that all-important emotive reaction.
16. Don't make presumptions
Presumption making can be the difference between a successful mood board and one that's dismissed as being too cerebral. There's a danger of expecting too much of the audience – that they'll 'know what you mean'. Chances are they won't. So if it takes a few more references, images or textures to get what's inside your head into a client's then add them in.
17. Test your mood board
Finally, don't forget to test out your boards before you send them off. Remember, it's not a game of Pictionary, so if your testing audience have to ask too many times what an image means or why it's there, then it probably shouldn't be there in the first place.
18. Have fun!
The whole process of creating mood boards should be fun - a refreshing break from the often tedious tasks of the jobbing designer. If you're not having fun then it's a sure sign you're going about things the wrong way...
Uses for mood boards
19. Use mood boards to brief designers
A mood board for Tom Baker's work on The Avengers cartoon series
Following on from the previous point, mood boards are a good way to brief a creative. Don't be afraid to go into detail. This mood board was compiled for animator Tom Baker as a mood and style guide for creating cartoon versions of The Avengers TV series characters.
Instead of relying on one example of character, several types were found in many different poses which helped Tom a clear take on the style and direction of the piece.
The finished characters
20. Use mood boards to speed up client signoff
Mood boards shouldn't just be for pitches. Consider preparing mood boards to show other similarly themed projects, websites or functions before creating polished visuals.
'I'll know it when I see it' is a phrase most of us are familiar with. But to hear this when finished artwork comes back from a client is gutting, signifying that it's back to square one. Using mood boards at different stages of the process can help you avoid this happening.
