Creating a mood board can be a really fun and inspiring part of the branding process. Your mood board should include photos, typography, colours, patterns, and textures. Combined, these elements will give you the visual direction for your brand’s design. Now you just need to know how to use your mood board.
After going through your brand discovery, sorting through tons of images, and determining the mood and direction of your brand, you are now ready to design your brand visuals. But just how are you supposed to turn a cluster of images into one cohesive brand story?
As you go through the design process, from initial sketches to final concepts, keep that mood board right there with you.
Keep referring to it, because it is so easy to get led astray and get lost in the moment and carried away on a design that no longer fits the original vision. You don’t want to end up with a design that doesn’t capture what you were after in the first place.
Colour Palette
Let your mood board be a guide for your colour selections.
You will have found that your board images all had a similar colour palette. Start picking out colours from the board and test them out. Test them on graphics, make sure they complement one another and start to narrow down your final choices. You can use a tool like coolors.co to help you generate a colour palette from your board.
Font Selection
You can begin choosing fonts based on typography on your board, looking for similar fonts and styles. Or you could use the board as a guide to choose fonts that communicate the feelings of your brand.
For example, say you’re going for a clean and modern design aesthetic, try picking a sans serif font. For a traditional, feminine feeling, a classic serif font will work beautifully. Play around with different fonts and pairings until you have found a combination that reflects your brand.
Read more: Branding Elements For Your Brand Identity
Patterns and Textures
There are likely some images in your mood board with varying patterns and textures. Use these to draw inspiration for your own brand patterns and textures. Patterns are perfect for creating backgrounds and branding your content. Having a pattern or two is a really helpful and flexible asset for your brand to be able to use.
Collaboration
Are you going to be working with a brand photographer, graphic or web designer, or social media manager? Be sure to share your mood board when working with other creative professionals so they understand how to visually communicate your brand’s visual story!
Ready to upgrade your brand identity? Email me at hello@openbookdesignco.com or visit my website at openbookdesignco.com to reserve a spot in my calendar! Although I live in Hamilton, ON I offer my design services to clients all over Canada and the world!
