Making a mood board

What a mood board actually is

A mood board is a collection of visual references – images, textures, colours, and shapes – gathered in one place to communicate a style direction (1). In the context of a custom engagement ring, it is not a finished design brief and it is not a shopping list. It is a visual conversation starter. Its job is to help a jeweller understand the feeling you are after, so they can translate that into a workable design ⁽²⁾.

"The first, and perhaps most important, phase is building an understanding of designs you like, and also importantly, those you don't. This is best captured visually in the form of a mood board or collection of saved images." – Sam Stirrat, founder of Blackacre ⁽¹⁾

What to include

A good mood board for a custom ring draws from a wider range of sources than most people expect. Do not limit yourself to ring images alone ⁽³⁾.

1. Jewellery images – useful for communicating specific preferences such as stone shape, setting style, band width, or metal colour. Five to ten images is usually plenty ⁽⁴⁾.
2. Architecture and interiors – the clean geometry of an Art Deco building, the organic curves of a Victorian arch, or the simple lines of a Scandinavian interior all translate into design language a jeweller can use ⁽³⁾.
3. Nature – a vine, a snowflake, a leaf, a coral formation. These can suggest texture, pattern, or silhouette without looking like any specific ring ⁽³⁾.
4. Art, fashion, and objects – a favourite painting, a garment with a particular texture, a ceramic piece, a pattern from a meaningful place. Anything that captures the mood of the ring you have in mind is fair game ⁽²⁾.
5. What they already own – jewellery your partner wears regularly is one of the most useful references of all. It tells a designer about scale, style, and what they are actually comfortable wearing day to day ⁽⁴⁾.

What not to include

1. Too many images – more than fifteen or twenty becomes hard to read. A focused mood board of eight to twelve images is more useful than a sprawling collection of fifty ⁽⁵⁾.
2. Images that contradict each other without explanation – if you include a very minimal solitaire and a heavily decorated vintage halo, note which elements you like from each, otherwise the jeweller does not know where to start.
3. Images saved purely because the ring is beautiful – beauty alone does not tell a designer much. The most useful images are ones that feel specifically right for the person who will wear the ring ⁽⁵⁾.

Annotating your images: the most underrated step

A plain collection of images is useful. An annotated collection is far more useful. For each image, a quick note explaining what you like – and what you would change – gives a designer precise, actionable information ⁽⁴⁾.

For example:

• "I like the tapered band and the low setting height here – not the round stone shape"
• "I love the milgrain detailing on the gallery, but the ring overall feels too chunky"
• "This is the exact metal colour I want – ignore the stone"

These kinds of notes turn a mood board from a vague wish list into a real design brief ⁽⁴⁾.

Tools for building a mood board

Several straightforward options work well, depending on how you prefer to organise things:

• Pinterest – the most widely used tool for this purpose. Easy to search, save, and share boards by link ⁽³⁾
• Canva – a free online design tool that lets you arrange images into a more structured layout, useful if you want to group images by category (such as stone shapes, metal colours, setting styles)
• Google Docs or Slides – simple, shareable, and easy to annotate with text alongside images
• A physical printed collage – old-fashioned but perfectly valid, particularly if you want to bring something tactile to a consultation
• A camera roll folder – the simplest option of all; a dedicated folder of saved screenshots is a mood board, even without a formal tool around it

There is no right answer. The best format is whichever one you will actually use ⁽⁴⁾.

Sharing it with your jeweller

Most jewellers are happy to receive a mood board by email before the consultation, which gives them time to think about it in advance ⁽¹⁾. If you are meeting in person, having it on your phone or printed out works just as well. Either way, be ready to talk through it rather than simply handing it over – the conversation around the images is often more useful than the images themselves.