Create Your Own Brand Moodboard

 

A Step-By-Step Guide to Create
Your Brand Moodboard


1. WHAT IS A BRAND MOODBOARD?
A brand moodboard is more than just an organized board of images that look pretty together. It’s an extremely valuable tool that can help to ensure that all of the visual parts of your brand create one cohesive experience for your target customers.

Your brand moodboard will help you to make decisions about your brand visuals, such as the type of imagery to use on your website, the kind of images to post on social media, or even the vibe that your headshots should give off.

Your moodboard is also something that can inspire you every day and be a reminder to focus on your brand and do things your way instead of comparing yourself to other brands.

2. DEFINE YOUR BRAND PERSONALITY
Just like you, your brand has a personality. Brand personality refers to the way your brand expresses itself. Defining your brand personality will help your target customer relate to you and your brand, which creates trust and understanding between you and your customers. Write down 4-8 adjectives that describe your ideal brand personality. Then narrow those words down to your top 3. Start with these three words to get a feel for how your brand will look.

3. DO SOME INSPIRATIONAL RESEARCH
Take some time to look up other brands and businesses that stand out to you. It could be their branding (logo, graphics, patterns, etc.), how you feel when you visit their website, a good color palette, the way they speak to their target customer, brand photography, or anything else that speaks to you. Save these as screenshots, or take detailed notes.

4. CREATE SOME GUIDELINES
Before running off to find pretty moodboard images, you need to start with some guidelines for what your brand stands for, and what it doesn’t. Here are some questions to answer about your brand that may guide you in the right direction:

1. What colors do you want to incorporate into your branding and why?
(try to choose between 3-5 main colors. This will create a more cohesive look.)

2. What font types do you want to incorporate into your branding and why?
(serif, san serif, script, bold, elegant, playful, delicate, etc.)

3. How do you want people to feel when they see your brand?
(reference your brand personality adjectives)

4. What other brands do you like and why?
(reference your inspirational research images and notes)

5. What style of photography or imagery are you drawn to?
(bright and clean, dark and moody, happy, serious, colorful, simple, etc.)

5. CREATE A SECRET PINTEREST BOARD
One of my favorite ways to collect imagery without feeling restricted is by creating a board on Pinterest. Pinterest’s secret boards are a great way to find and save images before creating a final brand moodboard without making them public to all your followers, allowing you the freedom to save images without boundaries, and then refine your visual inspiration until you find a style and feeling that best represent your brand.

6. CHOOSE YOUR COLOR PALETTE

Understanding color psychology
Creating a cohesive color palette for your brand is SO important! Color is one of the most noticeable components of a brand and it plays a large role in how your brand is perceived by your potential customers.

Color is a great way to communicate to your target customers and can be used to attract certain customers by influencing their mood and emotions and encourage action. Research has confirmed that how you use color reinforces brand recognition by up to 80%. So color makes a huge impact on your potential customers!

If you want to create a color palette that attracts your ideal audience and accurately represents your brand, you have to have a basic understanding of color psychology. I’ve listed some of these below! Use your brand personality words from step 2 and the guidelines you created from step 4 to help you choose which of the following basic colors reinforce your brand.

 

Choosing your brand colors
This is the fun part! From your Pinterest board, you should be able to see a color theme happening in a majority of your images. Follow these steps to narrow down to a cohesive color palette!

+ STEP 1 | Choose 1-2 main colors. You can do this by checking to see which colors show up the most on your Pinterest board, or you may have a favorite color in mind that describes your brand! Having only 1-2 main colors will help you stay cohesive, and will keep things simple and understandable for your target customers!

 

+ STEP 2 | Choose 2-4 accent colors. These are colors that you can use to give more excitement and personality to your brand, and make certain things on your website, social media, etc. “pop”. These colors should be used minimally throughout all brand touchpoints.

 

+ STEP 3 | A strong palette includes a balanced mix of light, medium, and dark tones. Make adjustments to your palette to ensure that the colors you’re using include a variety of light and dark tones to not only add contrast, but to give you more versatility when you implement your brand into other touchpoints.

7. CURATING YOUR IMAGES
As you filter through your Pinterest inspiration board, narrow and save images that look cohesive and follow the guidelines that you created in step 4. Your images should also include your brand colors from step 6. (If you have Photoshop, you can easily edit any image to match your chosen brand colors. If you don’t have Photoshop, try to choose images that contain at least 1 of your brand colors as the main color read.) Try to include at least one of each of the following types of images in your moodboard to provide a cohesive visual experience:

1. Fashion | What kind of clothing, jewelry, or accessories look like your brand?

2. Textures | How does your brand feel? Sleek and graphic or organic and hand-touched?

3. Pattern | Does your brand utilize pattern? Small, simple repeats, or large, placed graphics?

4. Space or Environment | What space does your brand feel like? Clean, white office space, confetti-filled party, calm mountains, cozy living room with a fireplace?

5. Font pairings | Reference your ideal font types from step 4

6. Lifestyle | Cute pencils and a planner, a steamy coffee mug, a funny quote on a letterboard?

7. Human interaction | What type of person is brand like? Two best friends laughing together, a woman in solitude with a good book, a group of friends at a concert?

8. NOW IT’S YOUR TURN!
Use this template to create your brand moodboard. Feel free to change the order of images or change the shapes to make it your own.

If you don’t have a digital program that you can use to create a moodboard, try printing out this page, as well as your curated images, and create a moodboard by cutting and gluing. When you’re finished, you’ll have a beautiful piece of artwork that you can hang at your desk to inspire you every day!

Download a FREE PDF version of my step-by-step guide here!

 
 
EducationAmanda Couchdesign, moodboard, education, creativity, brand, freebie