What are the best practices for creating a brand mood board?

One of the most valuable lessons I learned is to not limit your materials to the same medium as what you're trying to create. Steal digital design patterns from architecture, museums, paintings. Think about iconography from places of nature, religion, philosophy and ancient history. Getting outside of the regular behance/pinterest cycles will drive you more toward a brand that is based on a unified feeling and concept instead of a brand based on an industry

The key to curating a successful brand mood board is to first and foremost understand the personality and behaviours that make your dream customers buy and then to create your brand's personality which will be complementary to this. Once you understand the overall personality and vibe you intend to create around your brand, research colours and feels that would visually communicate the same. Draw inspiration from life and nature that would match this very visual aesthetic. For example, if the personality your brand's ideal audience is drawn towards is calm and collected, draw inspiration from the beach and nature and colours such as blues and greens which translate this emotion.

Before gathering your materials you absolutely need to know who you are targeting with your brand, as well as the brand's values and mission. Then you can start collecting visual materials for the mood board, but ensure that it connects and reflects the brand's ethos, and that the target audience would be drawn to it. When gathering materials go beyond your industry and your category. For Colour Palettes specifically, look around in nature and your city.

Personally, I love to start with a mood board. Find inspiration from within your category, outside your category, and direct competitors. What have they absolutely done right? Then make your negative mood board. What are some hard and fast no's for your brand? Anything you've heard senior team or client mention they hate? Are you a luxury food brand but really dislike red and yellow. Add it. The ideation and planning phase can be the most fun.

To start a brand mood board, select a creation platform like Photoshop, Canva, Pinterest, or a physical board. Gather images and elements from magazines, websites, blogs, social media, books, or personal photos that embody your brand. Utilize tools like Adobe Color or Coolors for matching color palettes.

When defining your brand character keep the keywords focused and concise. What are the 3 words that describe your brand personality and make you stand out in the category? It should be the combination of those 3 adjectives that make you unique and different.

A great tool that helps define brand keywords is the Brand Archetype tool. Not only does this tool help you curate a set of brand words based on the personality you want to curate, but also a set of personality trait which then helps you develop the visual tone of your brand.

We view the brand as a person because we anticipate that our customers will form a relationship with it. Consequently, we assign distinct personality traits to our brand. This approach differs from using keywords, as it offers a more vivid depiction of how the brand looks, sounds, and feels. By understanding these traits, you can more effectively select elements to incorporate into the mood board.

After gathering materials, identify your brand keywords that reflect values, attributes, emotions, and benefits. For a fitness app, this could include words like energetic, motivational, fun, healthy, and smart. Use Wordle or WordItOut to create word clouds for visualization and discover related terms. Also, consider online surveys or interviews to understand customer perceptions and associations with your brand.

Think of them as the cornerstones of your brand's identity. They are the essence distilled into a few powerful words that resonate with your audience. Choose them wisely- considering simplicity, trending, user-centric, be a yardstick of quality, and let them resonate in every interaction, making your brand a memorable and compelling force in the minds of your audience.

When building a mood board for your brand, you have select images and graphics that have elements that can be associated with your brand, but also with your buyer persona profile. These images must have a balance, try experimenting with images that follow you brands keywords while at the same time choosing others that will give you enough room to experiment and inspire you to innovate and bring something outside of the normal in your industry. Above all, know when to stop adding images to your mood board. Having too much images will overwhelm you and keep you from making good branding decisions.

The third step involves choosing images and elements aligning with your brand keywords and mood. Include product or service images, customer or industry-related visuals, and abstract images reflecting your brand tone and style. Incorporate fonts, icons, logos, shapes, textures, and patterns to enhance and balance your mood board. Strive for consistency and variety, being mindful not to overload or underuse images and elements.

Define the brand qualities you want linked to your brand. Begin with words, emotions, colours, and textures. Let those concepts marinate in your mind. Once solidified, discover visuals that perfectly capture and express your brand's essence and collect/place them on your board.

Aligning with Keywords: Ensure images and elements align with brand keywords & mood. Visual Diversity: Blend product visuals with abstract images reflecting brand tone. Element Integration: Integrate fonts,icons,logos & more for visual contrast. Balancing Consistency: Find balance between visual consistency & variety. Avoiding Extremes: Steer clear of too many or too few elements for appeal. Harmony Creation: Ensure selected visuals harmonize for a cohesive brand representation. Consistent Brand Tone: Maintain a consistent emotional impact throughout. Relevance Check: Confirm each element aligns with the brand message. Cohesion Testing: Test overall visual cohesion for brand identity.

In my experience, picking the right mix of images and elements for a mood board really sets the tone for your brand. I've found that combining both real-life and abstract images helps in painting a fuller picture of what the brand stands for. Adding in fonts, icons, and textures that vibe with these images can create a more cohesive look. It's a bit of an art – balancing variety with consistency. I've learned that going overboard or being too minimal can throw off the whole mood you're trying to capture.

Personally, I go for impact. Meaning, I keep negative space to a minimum and allow the images room to breathe on the board. Any negative space seen has been intentionally designed into the overall layout - usually to create space. Please, avoid clutter. Your moodboard should be easy for anyone to interpret. It should not overwhelm. If a chosen image doesn't add value to the board, be ruthless and remove it. Every image must earn its right on to the board. Creating moodboards is where I typically start with any client work. It serves as the compass, allowing us to converge on the desired brand vibe and construct a robust brand strategy upon this foundational visual narrative.

The brand moodboard usually comes after the core of your Brand strategy has been defined. First, think about how you want your brand to feel and what colors and pictures match that feeling. Imagine you're telling a story with your pictures – a story about what makes your brand awesome and makes you say ‘This is it!’. The rule of thumb is to not niche down your inspiration. You can draw inspiration from any brand, art, typography, campaign, photography that stands out to you. Then pick your brand archetype and choose pictures, colors, and textures that align with it. Another underrated tip is to make up a mood board of what you don't want your brand to look like so you stay on track. And always leave room for improvements.

Post-Strategy Mood boarding Develop the brand mood board after defining the core of your brand strategy. Emotional Resonance Consider how you want the brand to feel, selecting colors and pictures that evoke that emotion Tell a visual story of what makes your brand exceptional. Storytelling Approach Envision storytelling through images that convey the essence of your brand. Diverse Inspiration Don't limit inspiration sources; draw from diverse areas like other brands, art, typography, campaigns, and photography that stand out to you. Brand Archetype Alignment Choose a brand archetype and select visuals that align with it in terms of pictures, colors, and textures.

Firstly, start with a focal point- your mood board should have a central theme or image that encapsulates the essence you're aiming for. This sets the tone for the entire arrangement. Secondly, much like designing a user interface, establish a visual hierarchy. Place the most crucial elements in prominent positions to guide the viewer's attention and create a flow of information. Next, play with proximity- Group related elements together. Proximity creates a connection, much like the relationship between different components in a product design. It helps convey a unified message

Like mentioned above, the mood board should have a few key sections to start: - Iconography - Type - Colors - Social/Photography The goal is to show a range of Do's and Don'ts when designing.

In the final step, refine and review your mood board. Ensure it aligns with your brand goals, vision, and strategy, and effectively communicates your brand's personality and message. Seek feedback from team members, stakeholders, or customers to gauge their understanding and connection with your mood board. Utilize tools like Miro or InVision for online sharing and collaboration. Be prepared to make adjustments and improvements based on the feedback and outcomes.

After arranging, step back and evaluate your mood board from a distance. Much like evaluating a product's user experience, this provides a holistic view of the overall impact.

In my view, the refinement and review process for a mood board is not just a final step but an ongoing cycle of improvement. It's essential to treat the mood board as a living document that evolves with the brand and its changing dynamics. Regularly revisiting and reassessing the mood board ensures that it stays in tune with emerging trends or audience preferences. Furthermore, incorporating diverse perspectives is key to the effectiveness of the mood board. Seeking feedback from team members or customers provides a valuable outside-in view, helping to identify blind spots and ensuring that the visual elements resonate with a broader audience.

This is when feed back from senior team or your client is imperative. What made them lite up? Now it the time to make changes and edits. It's the lowest stakes portion of the process, solely because of the lack of design hours it takes to screenshot other people's work. Past this point, your personal creative work or ideas will be critiqued rather than a vague idea.

Collect inspiration from various sources such as websites, magazines, photography, art, and design. Look beyond your industry for ideas that resonate with the emotions and messages you want your brand to convey.

Creating a mood board is a process. Be prepared to add, remove, or replace elements as the brand's vision becomes clearer. Getting feedback from others, especially those who represent the brand's target audience, can provide valuable insights and help refine the mood board. Remember: a mood board is a tool to visually communicate the essence of a brand.

A best practice that we regularly use at workshops is to create your brand’s current and desired mood boards by taking the help of the internet and magazines! Use random images across different genre of magazines/publications and use references of culture (songs, movies, food etc) to define your brand. Such a variety of resources helps in better describing your brand with detailed and pictographic associations!

Mood boards stand out as crucial tools in brand development. When executed effectively, they provide clients with a unique chance to actively participate in the design process. This involvement allows clients to offer valuable feedback before the commencement of any design work, fostering a collaborative approach. The process of presenting three distinct mood boards empowers the client to make an informed decision, committing to a specific design direction before progressing further in the creative journey.

Mood boards are indicators, they will not be your creative. It's important to form your ideas and try to ground them in what works already but keep in mind that our creative brains work by synthesising information we didn't know we had. Sometimes the best work doesn't have a directly attributable source but instead comes from years of experiencing, absorbing and appreciating.