TOOL SPECIFICATIONS
Creating a moodboard is an expressive experience that enables learners to visualise their idea of redesigning a space through cut-outs, colours, materials, and evocative objects.
The activity is carried out on a rigid or cardboard A3 surface, divided into suggested thematic areas (e.g., colours, textures, materials, accessories, atmosphere), while still allowing full compositional and creative freedom.
Learners are guided through the process in the following phases:
- Exploring the material: they browse the provided kit which contains a curated selection of images of interiors and objects related to the world of living, organised into coherent categories (e.g., natural, urban, convivial, intimate, stimulating, calming).
- Selecting and cutting: they freely choose the visual elements that represent them, cutting them out from magazines or other provided resources.
- Creative personalisation: they may enrich their composition with drawings, annotations, lines, shapes, or comments, making each moodboard a unique piece reflecting the emotions and experiences that emerged throughout the process.
- Sharing (optional): at the end of the activity, a moment of sharing the collage can be included. This helps learners verbalise their choices and fosters empathetic exchange with other participants and with the facilitator.
Why is this a key tool in the design process?
The LIVING MOODBOARD tool represents a key phase in the transition from perception to design. Through the creation of a visual and tactile moodboard, users concretely translate what they explored in the previous modules: desired atmospheres, evoked emotions, recognised trends, and aesthetic and emotional needs.
In professional practice, the moodboard is one of the most widely used tools by interior designers to visualise the style of a space even before selecting furniture or materials. It is a form of pre-design that helps define the overall mood of an environment, guiding colours, finishes, textures, and objects according to a coherent emotional and visual framework.
This activity also allows designers to capture elements that are difficult to verbalise, such as:
- The need for warmth or lightness
- A preference for natural or technological materials
- An inclination toward stimulating or protective spaces
- The desire for an essential or decorative style
Each composition thus becomes a personalised design guide that allows learners to move beyond standard models and propose tailor-made environments truly centered on the person. In essence, the moodboard acts as a bridge between feeling and building – connecting what moves us with the spaces we will ultimately inhabit.
Within the WellHome training programme, this tool takes on an even deeper role: it does not simply collect inspiration, but restores identity to the space, making it recognisable and aligned with personal experiences and emerging aspirations.
A concrete method for designing from lived experience
The strength of this tool lies in its ability to transform emotions, needs, and individual trends into an immediate visual and material language. Through colours, textures, images, accessories, and keywords each participant creates a concrete representation of their living imagination.
Each selected element (a fabric, a colour, a finish) reflects lifestyles, aspirations, and sense of domestic well-being.
This tool is particularly effective for:
- Visually mapping desired atmospheres
- Revealing chromatic and tactile preferences
- Connecting lived emotions to tangible furnishing elements
- Offering designers a concrete and coherent operational reference
LIVING MOODBOARD is therefore a bridge between inner experience and real design, useful both in individual settings and co-design processes – especially when working with vulnerable people, families, communities, or intergenerational groups. It offers a vision of living that is identity-based, shared, and deeply human.
Design aplications
Once the moodboard is completed, the collected material becomes a concrete and inspirational resource for space design. This is the point in which it is possible to:
- Translate the visual mood into design guidelines: colour palettes, dominant materials, atmospheres to evoke
- Identify recurring patterns (e.g., need for warmth, privacy, comfort, protection) as starting points for coherent spatial development
- Design furniture, layouts, and details that reflect the final users’ visions
- Verify alignment between the design and the lifestyles identified in previous modules, integrating emotion and function
- Encourage constructive dialogue between designers and final users, enhancing the participatory dimension.
An accessible and adaptable tool
LIVING MOODBOARD is a highly adaptable tool: it can be customised based on age, cultural background, cognitive abilities, or the desired level of depth.
The selected materials (samples, cut-outs, palettes, accessories) can be simplified or enriched with visual symbols, facilitating prompts or intuitive codes, making the tool accessible even to people with special learning needs.
Its modular structure makes it scalable: it can be used in training programs, co-design activities, group workshops, or individual sessions. It is a flexible operational tool that adapts to context and depth of the design process.
Colour choices, selected materials, and composed atmospheres are not mere aesthetic preferences: they become meaningful indicators of needs, emotions, and cultural references.
Through the visual representation of one’s “living identity”, each learner activates a process of self-recognition that guides the design toward more empathetic, coherent, and inclusive solutions.
Ready to use, easy to replicate
One of LIVING MOODBOARD’s greatest strengths is its immediate usability: the tool is designed for use without complex equipment or advanced technical skills.
All materials are easy to source, organise, and transport, making the tool suitable for school, educational or co-design contexts.
The activity is simple and intuitive and can be carried out autonomously by the learner.
Replicability is guaranteed by the clarity of the process: each learner follows a guided yet creative pathway that begins with emotions, moves through housing trends, and arrives at the visual definition of a space consistent with their lived experience.
