Moodstream by Getty Images

Posted on June 17, 2008 Under Design

Anyone in the industries of marketing, graphic design, advertising, film-making, journalism, publishing, and way more knows that the indispensability of Getty Images ranks right up there with Apple and oxygen. It’s a one-stop place to shop for a mind-bogglingly huge array of images, footage, and music and is relied upon by creative types worldwide.

Now, Getty Images has tapped even further into the mindset of right-brained creative types with Moodstream, a kick-ass new brainstorming search tool. It's amazingly intuitive user interface starts with a presets wheel where you start the foundation of your search by choosing feelings that stabilize, simplify, intensify, refresh, excite, or inspire. Then you fine-tune from there– make the mood happier or sadder, turn the images nostalgic or contemporary, go for a vibe that's warmer or cooler, and much more. As you adjust the settings, the site plays different tracks from its music library to match what you've chosen, and each time you refresh your settings you're taken down a completely new road of imagery, sound, and video footage.

As you gather materials that ‘work,’ you can collect them together into individual Moodboards that you can save online– ideal for working on multiple projects at once or, if something's not working, forgetting about it for a while before coming back to attack it again. Though with a creativity boosting tool like this at your fingertips, inspiration probably won't be much of a problem.