Today I wanted to share more about creating a brand mood board and why doing so helps your business. Listen in and find the show notes below, or on iTunes, Stitcher or Spotify.
Whether you’re working with a designer to create your brand, doing it yourself or want some visual clarity on what your business is all about. A brand mood board is what you need!
Mood boards help you get clarity and visualise your style, purpose and direction. It’s not about just putting pretty images together but creating a visual story that focuses your ideas in a cohesive way.
Meaning a brand mood board will help the design process. Often meaning fewer design revisions as you and your designer (even if that is you!) are on the same page visually at the start of the process.
It can also help to develop the colour palette and overall direction for the rest of your brand identity.
I’ve broken down the steps for how to create your brand mood board below.
Start with your why
First up you’re going to have to start with what makes your business unique, what your values are why you do what you do.
You want to do this so your brand isn’t just a logo, but a whole design style that has thoughtful touches to reflect your USP’s and purpose to effectively engage your audience.
I have a free Brand, Design & Product USP checklist you can download when you sign up for my Design Edit newsletter. Or if you want to go even more in-depth with this then you can buy the Brand USP’s & Make Your Business Unique workbook that includes an MP3 recording.
Bonus points if you identify your customer too in this process. Hint – you really should!
Get inspired
After you’ve done the research then you can get inspired! So start big and gather lots of inspiration. Pin as many images as you’re drawn too and rip out as many pages of a magazine that you like. Don’t over analyse things too much at this stage.
Ask yourself the following questions to get you started:
- What’s your brand design style based on your USP’s?
- Romantic, minimalist, vintage, colourful, fun, modern
- What could your brands colour palette be?
- Bright, muted, dusky, rich deep hues, pastels, black & white
- Do you have an accent colour?
Then you want to start to analyse your inspiration
- What do you like, don’t like and what do you want to focus on?
- Keep it succinct with fewer images that present a focused look
Edit and shortlist your final images, fabrics, textures & embellishments
- Curate your images and focus on your key ideas
- Do these visuals match your keywords from your brand why & USP’s?
Brand mood board design tips
- Start with one main image as your focus point and build around this
- Look at how you can layer your visuals so they work together without obscuring each other
- Think about adding negative space or an empty frame around your visuals to allow your board to breathe
- If you have a lot of visuals then keep the board cohesive by using a similar colour palette or similar shaped images
- Ask yourself – is your brand message obvious in the style?
A good thing to then do is present your mood board to your family and friends. Ask them to give honest feedback and if it represents your words, your business and vision.
And good luck with creating your brand mood board. I hope this helps clarify the process and how it can help your business grow and develop in the direction you envisage. If it was useful then please do share the episode with a friend or on Instagram @arnoldandbird. It really helps little shows like mine get found!
If you want help creating your brand identity and are not prepared to try and do it all yourself. As design programs are confusing and you don’t want to create something that still doesn’t look the way you wanted it to. Then get in touch about my full branding package. I’d love to work with you to bring your Pinterest inspiration to life!
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