Hiiiiii peeps.
Guess what time it is - it's making fun graphics for your stories time!
Today I wanna show you how to very easily create a moodboard for your book baby, and do it for free. Trust me, you'll never be the same after this. :D
Enjoy!!!
Sign up for Canva - it's free.
Canva is a free design tool - you can make a book cover, a promo image, anything, for absolutely free, and it's super easy to use. Everyone and their grandma does.
Just sign up for free and play around with it. It's fun. :D
Choose the size of your project.
Go to that "create a design" button and choose whatever you need! For a moodboard, I just use the Instagram post square, since moodboards are usually square. :)
Go to Elements, type 'Grid', and choose one.
On the left you have a bunch of tabs - you have templates, elements (where you can search any element you want for your graphic, yes, including arrows for those arrowy book promo thingies), uploads, where you upload your images (like mockups, etc.), text, where you add text on your graphic, projects, and apps. Often you will find some things you have to pay, so if you don't want to do that, just choose something that doesn't have a crown on it.
Anyway, if you just type 'grid' in the search box, a bunch of grids will appear, lots of them! Just scroll down and choose the one you like for your moodboard. :)
Download photos from Pixabay.
Here's the thing. You can go to Elements -> Photos and search free photos from there, but I find it annoying that a lot of the photos are paid, and if you want to add the photo again to a different part of the grid, you have to search for it again, so it's much easier to go to Pixabay, find photos that fit your story, then Upload them to Canva.
Out of all the free photos sites, I recommend this one because the images are of the highest quality and there are so many, including some cool things people have made.
Upload the photos to Canva and populate your grid.
Go to the Upload tab on the left and upload your photos! Then just literally take the photo you like - drag and drop it to a part of your grid. Or just click on the photo, and when the photo is on the canvas, just drag and drop it to a part of your grid. This way, you can populate every part of your grid. If you want to resize or move something around, just click on it twice and it's going to show more clearly and allow you to move and resize it.
You can add text, too!
Just go under Text and add text to it! Here I have chosen some fancy text, but you can also just add normal text and then format it like you would on any other program - choosing font, size, and so on (it's going to appear on the top there, above your canvas). Move it around, see where it fits on your canvas, and voila, you have it done.
Here's my moodboard.
This moodboard is for my upcoming book To Trust and To Touch - it's a gay romance about a man, Alex, who can't be touched, and a single dad, Sigh. And their beautiful love story.
In this moodboard, I tried to portray that it's a journey of hurting and starting over again - very intimate and emotional. Hopefully I managed to portray just that. :)
The book has an age gap and major hurt/healing vibes, just the way I like it. :D
It's coming out on December 13! You can read Chapter 1 here.
Now it's your turn!
Have fun creating your moodboard! And post a link here if you want!
Let's see your beautiful creation. :)
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