How to create a Mood Board
In today's post, we are going to talk about mood boards and how to create your own mood board and why they are important to your brand, so let's get started!
A mood board is an inspirational collection of images, colors, fonts that are going to define your brand and how you want your brand to look.
It reflects your overall style and the direction that you want for your brand, and it includes a couple of elements.
You're maybe asking, "Where do I start?"
#1 Inspiration
The first thing that you can do to start creating it, or to get inspiration for your mood board is to do a search on Pinterest.
If you don't have already an account, you can create one. It's really easy in terms of the steps. You just have to sign up for an account and create a board.
Once you're in there you will need to think about what you want your brand to reflect.
For example, if it's a whimsical brand like targeting children, moms or if it's a green brand, a lot of natural textures, colors, a lot of greenery and things like that, or if maybe it's bold and bright.
#2 Color
One of the first things that I like to add to a mood board is colors or color palette.
As I already mentioned, depending on what you want your brand to reflect, you can opt for soft colors, bold colors, or a mix of both to balance it out.
So it depends on your preference. That would be one of the elements that will go on your mood board.
When you are searching through Pinterest, you can type on Pinterest search bar, 'color palettes'.
You can be more specific, especially if you already have a business idea in mind, a product, or a niche that you want to represent with your brand.
If you have a business of selling nursery décor, you can search color palettes to decorate nurseries for boys or color palettes to decorate a nursery for girls, and that will bring up a lot of results.
For example, if you're looking for a more neutral palette and that is your style, you can also incorporate those words into your search. You can search 'neutral color palettes,' or something similar.
A style that is now very popular, which I really like, is the Nordic or the Scandinavian style, which is very minimalist, with a lot of white and black accent and sometimes they can incorporate some pastel tones.
So that is something to keep in mind, which colors match your brand. Based on that, you can go into Pinterest and have a look and get inspirations.
Once you find a couple of color palettes inspirations, save them on your board. You call can name your board 'inspiration for my brand,' and just save all the pins there, so you can go back and have a look at that for reference.
Grab your Free Mood board template!
#3 Images
The other element that is going to go on your mood board, would be images.
Images are really important because those are going to give you an idea of the vibe or look that you want to achieve with your brand.
Again, you can do the same search to get those inspirational images.
If you find any images that are of interest to you or maybe you can use those images as well to inspire your color palette, save them as well on your inspiration board for your brand.
#4 Font & Typography
The other elements that go on your mood board are fonts.
You don´t have to be a font expert, but it's also nice to search for fonts that might appeal to you.
That can give you a good reference in terms of the style that you want to bring out.
If you are into the style for hand-drawn letters, you can search that as well, and a lot of options will pop up.
You can go through those and take into account what appeals to you and what you're drawn to and you can save that in your inspiration board.
#5 Patterns and Textures
Another element would be textures or patterns. It's kind of similar to images, but this could be more into like geometric patterns or, for example, like repetitive pattern of a specific, let's say, like a flower or circles or polka dots and things like that.
That's something that is really helpful because you can incorporate those into your brand and your overall design and your different social media platform as well.
That's an element that could identify your brand.
For example in my brand, I really like the splatter effect. You can see that a lot of in my illustrations on my Instagram feed.
You have the different dots sizes or a splatter pattern going all over my illustrations. That's something that identifies me.
If you see my website, you can see that pattern as well, so people are going to start relating those elements to my brand.
I´m sure it has happened to you that you say "Oh, that looks like such and such brand,"
Wrap up!
OK, so we´ve covered already colors, patterns, images, fonts. The last element to go on your mood board is the logo for your brand if you already it.
If you don't have that and you're looking for something different to add to your brand, make sure to check out my Work with Me page. I offer the service of hand-drawn logos, which is going to complement all the brand elements that you already have.
Or if you're a brand-new business owner and you want to have a cohesive brand to start with, is really helpful to have a mood board. For example, I can get an idea of your brand once I see the mood board that you have created and crate my illustrations based on what inspires you.
It's really good to have a board created either on Pinterest, or you can create it on Canva, which is a very easy and user-friendly free online software.
You can create a collage to represent all that. You can download a template that I have created for you, to give you an idea of how to put it together in a nice layout.
Hope you find this useful and it gives you more clarity. Mood boards, as I say, is one of the things that is going to reflect the overall style of your brand, so it's good to do it when you're starting out.
Don't be afraid that if you start with your inspirational mood board, thinking that is going to be the one through the life of your business or anything like that.
Because those things definitely evolve as you evolve as a business, as you niche down or find out what you really want to do with your business. So it's an evolving process.
For example, you can do it when you're starting and maybe within a year of your business review it and see if those elements still represent you or if something has changed or maybe your view of your business has changed.
It's something that is continually evolving, so don't be afraid to go through your journey and do tweaks.
It's not fixed in stone so make sure that you know that!
That way, you will be less intimidated to create one because you might think, "Oh, I have to make the right decision now, like the right color, the right font, the right everything."
No! You can go ahead and start your business journey now with a mood board that inspires you now and then you can review it within six months, a year.
Make sure to sign up and grab the free download template.
See you next time!