A brand mood board is a visual representation of a company’s identity and branding. It’s a collection of images, colors, and textures that set the tone for a brand. It also helps define the company’s personality, and values, and gives a sense of the culture of the company. This can be used as a guide for designers when creating a company’s branding. There are tons of reasons why building a mood board is important – especially when it comes to building your brand. In this post, I’ll share why it’s important and how to build on it.

Why Do I Need a Brand Mood Board

Every project needs to start with a foundation. Photoshoots, websites, and even your brand. Think of a mood board as a secret weapon for your business, an arsenal in your toolbox. Creating a mood board is one of the best things you can do for your rebrand strategy. When you dive into creating without defining the parameters or the general vibe, you could end up creating something that isn’t beneficial for your business at all.

Let’s say you are a business coach, and you’re targeting young active moms who want to start a business for their families. If you jump into creating without first getting clear on your ideal client and the mood that compliments that client, then you could end up attracting the wrong people. What a waste! The same thing can happen in a photoshoot. Often times my clients have to go through brand photography shoots so that their websites highlight them in their best versions. But if you aren’t strategic with your choices, your locations, clothes, and poses can be working against you.

Implementing Mood Boards In Your Rebranding Strategy

As a Showit website designer, I create mood boards for my clients daily. There are two places where I implement brand mood boards for my client rebrands. The first mood board is created in the brand strategy portion. The second mood board is created as I am creatively directing the photoshoot. This ensures both my client and I are on the same page as far as visuals and the overall tone for their brand. The mood board will let me know if they are the type of accountant that wears jeans and mules to work, or walks around in a sharp two-piece suit. These types of minor changes affect the type of clients she’ll attract as well. Let’s walk through some examples of mood boards I create for clients

Mood Board Examples

To illustrate what I mean, I’m including multiple client example brand mood boards below. 

Everygirl

EVERYGIRL has a very light, friendly, and eco-conscious feel to its brand. Environmentally friendly is one of their brand values, so I compiled a series of words and images that would reflect that. You’ll see I pulled lighter so-cal imagery and pulled the tones and colors from that to create the overall brand direction.

Candace

Candace is a high-energy business coach. She’s loud, unapologetic, and vibrant. In her mood board, we opted for louder colors to bring this energy across, and help guide the designs that would come after. We opted for bolder textures and very sassy personal imagery. You can see the colors were ultimately pulled from the moldboard to create the brand colors.

Photographer Mood Board

Mood boards are incredibly helpful during the planning stages of a brand photoshoot. Here you’ll see outfit ideas I created to assist my client when shopping for her brand photography session. This helps to make sure we stay on brand throughout each stage of the rebrand.

How a Mood Board Turns into a Brand

Let’s take a further look at Everygirl and Candace. After they approved their branding, I went ahead and started orchestrating their brand shoots. This included scouting locations, and photographers, and creating another mood board for outfits. As you add more people to a team, you have to make sure everyone is on the same page. A mood board for the photographer will remind them of the overall mood of the photoshoot. It also aids them in creating a shot list. A mood board for the client will help guide them on any outfits they need to include to make sure the overall mood is achieved. If you have a stylist – EVEN BETTER. But most people will not have a stylist on hand for their photoshoots. Therefore, a mood board is a great substitute.

How to Create a Mood Board

Now that you know the importance of a mood board and the huge role it plays in the success of a rebrand, you might be eager to create your own! Here are my tips.

1. Identify your ideal client. Make sure you know who your audience is. This has a big factor on your overall style. Each example I listed above looks wildly different from one another because their ideal clients are all different. Don’t miss this step. It is critical
2. Create a Pinterest board. It’s time to find some inspiration! Head into Pinterest and start looking for images that evoke the vibe you are going for. Look for inspiration in interior design, food/drinks, outfits, locations, and typography. This range of inspiration will help you get a well-rounded idea of the tone of your brand.
3. Choose your software. I use Adobe XD to create my mood boards, but lately, I have been trying Canva and it has been amazing! Find a mood board template that works for you. Import your images and start creating!
4. Pull your colors from your mood board. Ever wonder how some designers are able to create amazing color palettes – we take it from the mood board! As you populate your mood board with images see what colors stand out or repeat themselves. Note and typography that seems to implement your images and colors. From that compile them together and you have a vibe for your business!

Brand mood boards are such a powerful tool when it comes to visually reflecting the personality of a brand. When done correctly, it can produce tremendous results in the branding process. If you are feeling way over your head and know you want help, reach out to us by filling out an inquiry form. I’d love to talk more in terms of the vision of your brand.