What Does Your Inspiration Board Say About You?

Scraps pinned on a mood board may provide clues to your personality. See what your board reveals

Amy ReneaJuly 10, 2012

I’m no expert, but when I look at someone's inspiration board I feel like I can get an immediate sense of whether they are a left-brained (logical, analytical) creative or a right-brained (random, intuitive) creative. Now I know that all creatives utilize their right brains extensively, but some of us creative folk tend to toss a large percentage of mathematics, exacting precision and left-brained order into our creativity.

Where do you fall on the spectrum? Are you a full-blown right-brained creative type, or are you obsessed with detail and symmetry? Check out your own inspiration boards — do they reflect the way you work?

User

The left-brained creative type tends to start with the pieces and work up to a whole. They are the analytical types who create incredibly detailed, geometrically exact designs. When I look at this design board, I see someone who worked added pieces to the inspiration board until it was a complete picture from start to finish. I see pieces that fit together perfectly, like a puzzle, and a perfectly united color scheme.

User

Perhaps the most left-brained of creative professions is the field of architecture. Architects are masters at blending science and art. It would shock me to find anything but an exacting, perfectly spaced and aligned inspiration board in an architect's space.

Two Ellie

When creating mood boards, there are those who stay within the lines and those who do not even see the lines. I would propose that the creator of this mood board has quite a few left-brain tendencies. Each piece seems to have been meticulously added to the whole, creating a board that is precisely full without moving beyond any edges.

Paul DeGroot

The creator of these boards also sticks to an exacting pattern of like photos and drawings. The boards fit seamlessly with the rest of the precisely furnished room. These boards say left-brained creative type to me. How about you?

Wendy K. Leigh

As we draw closer to the right-brained side of the creative world, bulletin boards loosen up. There is no longer this bit-by-bit creation of the whole. Rather, the ideas seem more like they are plucked out of some creative place and mixed with ease. This board seems like a happy medium between the precision of a left-brained creative and the wild freedom of a right-brained creative.

Right-brained creatives can't seem to stop their creativity. Their ideas seem to spill out of them on any given surface. One mood board is full? The little scraps of inspiration find their way onto other surfaces: tacked to the wall, pasted on the ceiling — wherever their owners can find the room to express their ideas.

Nicole Lanteri Design

The hallmark of a right-brained creative type for me is the presence of chaotic creativity. Right-brained creators think of the large picture and then make it happen whether it is right or not.

This inspiration board makes me think this artist is a closet right-brainer. This person seems to think in broad strokes "outside the lines" but isn't ready to go nutso all over the bedroom wall. There is also that board of gutsy beads in brilliant colors to consider. I'd say this is a right-brainer with a little restraint, wouldn't you?

Laura Trevey

So, now it is your turn. Please share your inspiration boards in the Comments below. Upload your photos, tell us about your boards and about your creative process. Are you a right-brained or left-brained creative? Does your inspiration wall reflect that? I'm curious to test my theory!

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