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Have you ever worked on a project that used mood boards to help tell a story? The visual help always complements the story - after all they say a picture is worth a thousand words right? So let's check out a new website called Image Spark [No Longer Available]. They let you upload images and create mood boards.

Using Image Spark we can display these mood boards and freely upload images and move them around. This is great in a meeting on a iPad or other touch screen computer. Users can move the images around creating timelines, banners, posters or whatever else they can imagine.

Click on the register button on the homepage to sign up for free. You will need to give them your email address but in return you will be given a free 1 gigabyte chunk of webspace and 2 mood boards. Go ahead and fill in the information, agree to their terms and we will soon be on our way to uploading our images.

When you first log in you will see a lot of empty space. Image Spark jokes that your library looks pretty bare and they will offer to help you grow it. The way you add images to your webspace is one of three methods.

The three methods that are available are the Firefox plug in, the Mac application and the classic web upload form. I wrote this article on a Windows machine that only had Internet Explorer. So I was forced to use the browser uploader. But if you were using the Firefox plug in you can right click  on any web image and automatically have it uploaded into Image Spark webspace.

If you are using the Mac application you will be able to grab images that you cannot right click on like in Flash animations or while watching a movie. PC users will have to wait for this feature.

So I was stuck using the browser uploader and for the time being that meant uploading one image at a time. I used the form below to fill in some basic information about my image and then I hit the upload button.

Note: If you want to keep your images private and away from the community's search function you NEED to check the checkbox at the bottom of the form that says: "Make Image Private?". Failing to do so will result in other users finding and seeing your images.

As the images are uploaded you will see them in your "My Library" section of the site. You have to go back to the image uploader to upload another image. This is a downfall of the browser uploader and hopefully will be resolved with future website upgrades.

Now I clicked on the MyMoodboards tab and this is what I saw:

I clicked to create a mood board and it opened a new window:

and here are a few created by the community:

Use your mood board as inspiration for your next project, a push towards finding direction or in a meeting as a group collaboration tool. We have also covered other group collaboration tools in the past but maybe if they are too much for you then Image Spark is the way to go.

What do you think? Do you know of other similar tools and projects?  If so, let us know in the comments!