Moodboard – what is it and why does my brand need it?
Beautiful photos and graphics inspire you to create. This is a sign that you need to create a mood board. For a visual person, inspiring pictures, beautiful colour palettes or typography can help in everyday work. But a mood board is primarily a tool that allows you to feel the aesthetics of the project. Create your inspiration board today and see how it can help you clarify your project vision.
Table of Contents
- What is a mood board?
- Why is it worth making a mood board?
- Moodboard will guide you
- Where to start?
- Collect inspiration
- Prepare the board
- Limit the number of elements
- How to use a ready-made mood board?
What is a mood board?
Moodboard is nothing more than an inspiration board with photos, images, colours and patterns that evoke a specific reaction in us. Such a board can motivate us to act, bring some peace and solace or evoke pleasant memories. However, mood boards are a great tool for creating visual communication for your brand. After all, a picture says more than a thousand words.
Why is it worth making a mood board?
In addition to the fact that a mood board is one of the basic aids in developing a brand image, preparing an inspiration board will put you in the perfect mood to create. Just collecting visually inspiring items to write on the board will help you organise your ideas in your head. With your own inspiration board, you will decide faster which ideas should be eliminated so that they do not distract your recipient’s attention. Moodboard will help you develop a vision of your brand, its specific atmosphere and its values. Moodboard is especially important if you are creating it for your client or team – thanks to it you will be sure that everyone has the same project vision.
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Moodboard will guide you
A well-developed mood board is a kind of compass that you can always use. In your day-to-day work, you can always go back to the board and make sure you’re on the right track when creating your branding materials. The inspiration board will also help you when you have no idea for your next creation.
Where to start?
Before you start collecting inspirational elements for your mood board, think about what emotions it should evoke in your recipients. When you create a mood board, think about what your customers need and how you can help them achieve a specific goal or solve a problem they are struggling with. Specify exactly to who you want to address your offer, what you want your brand to be known for and what adjectives define it. With such a knowledge base, you can start creating a mood board.
Collect inspiration
It’s time to go in search. Browse Instagram, Pinterest, favourite websites or the “Graphic” tab in the search engine. Enter the adjectives listed in the previous step into the search engine. If you prefer a more analogue approach, browse through your favourite albums, books, and magazines and build a database of illustrations, photos, typography and colour palettes from the materials collected there. Collect all the things that spark your creativity – you can even find inspiration in product packaging on store shelves.
Prepare the board
In the initial stage of creating an inspiration board, you will have a huge collection of material that needs to be collected somewhere. You can create a mood board from paper clippings on a cardstock or corkboard. Pin graphics you find online to a Pinterest board or start making collages out of them in Procreate or Photoshop. Initially, the collection can be large and even overwhelming. But don’t be discouraged, over time an orderly vision will emerge from this chaotic collection of images.
Limit the number of elements
Look at your collection holistically and start looking for a common denominator in it. Ahead of you is probably the most difficult part of the task, i.e. choosing a few photos and adjectives that best reflect the nature of your brand. Remove items that are too similar or too confusing. At this stage, be sure to be guided by the needs of your target group. Take your time, and think carefully about which elements to leave and which are not necessary. In this way, you will create the final shape of the appearance and character of your business.
How to use a ready-made mood board?
The finished mood board will be useful whenever you create visual creations for your brand. It is especially helpful at the very beginning when you are just working out the look and character of your brand. Over time, the visual nature of your brand will become so ingrained in your blood that you will draw and design graphics that will be consistent with the entire concept without thinking. Moodboard will come in handy when you introduce someone new to your team – thanks to it, you can clearly and understandably tell the other person how your brand should look visually.
