Building a Mood Board From Pinterest: A Designer’s Workflow

Published 2026-10-31 · by the PinSaveHD team

Pinterest is where many design projects begin, but a board full of hundreds of pins is not yet a mood board. Here is a workflow that turns inspiration into something you can present.

1. Collect broadly, in a dedicated board

Create a board per project and use sections for themes: colour, texture, typography, layout. Keep it secret if the client has not announced the project — just remember downloaders only see public boards.

2. Cut it down

Pick 12–20 pins that genuinely agree with each other. A tight selection communicates direction better than volume.

3. Extract a palette

Run your favourite pins through the colour palette extractor and keep five or six HEX values that recur.

4. Export references

For a public board, the board downloader exports about the 50 most recent pins as a ZIP with a manifest of original links, so you can credit sources.

5. Present it

Lay out the images with the palette and two or three keywords. Link back to the original pins in your notes.

Written and reviewed by the PinSaveHD team. We test every step on real public pins. Spotted an error? Tell us.