I’m sure you have seen those beautiful mood boards posted all over Pinterest or Instagram. It has become a big trend to post these & no wonder why. Seeing a collection of images, textures & colors that all come together to bring a unique & beautiful mood is an awesome thing. It spikes your creativity & imagination. It takes you to the place & feeling that the person who carefully chose those images wants you to be.

Mood boards set the mood for everything else to come in your brand. They set the mood for which fonts to pick & pair together. They set the mood for the color scheme. All important choices of your brand come from your mood board. Think of mood boards as the rough draft to your brand. I have listed for you today 3 reasons why you should take the time to make a mood board for your business.

1. You Can Keep Coming Back to Your Mood Board as Your Business Evolves

One of the most important reasons to have a mood board for your brand is to make sure that your branding stays consistent, cohesive, & on track throughout the creation & changing of your business. If you are an entrepreneur of any kind you know that as time presses on, your business changes. It evolves. You make new products, you discontinue some, you get a deeper understanding on how to best spend your time, you delegate more things, etc.

If your business does not have a mood board, there is no baseline to look at to constantly make sure that you are staying on track with your brand. To make sure that you are succeeding in publishing the same theme, feelings, & content for your tribe. This is why creating a mood board is one of my first steps in creating a brand for one of my clients.

2. It Keeps You & Your Client On the Same Page

If you are a designer like me, it is crucial to the branding process to create mood boards. It is to make sure that you & your client are on the same page on the look & feel of the brand. There have been times where I thought I was completely understanding what my client wanted when they said words like “rustic”, “elegant”, “urban”. However, the truth is those descriptive words are still pretty broad & can mean something different to your client than they do to you. Mood boards are very easy to switch out pictures & get on the same page quickly if you end up on the wrong page. Starting off right away with logo concepts only to find that none of them are liked because you and your client have different understandings of what they had in mind is setting you up for frustration & time loss (probably for your client too). It takes a lot more time to come up with logo concepts then it does a mood board.

3. Mood boards Become Your Brand Baseline

Like I said before, your mood board is kind of like the rough draft to your business brand. The baseline or guide if you will. It will help you decide on all the visual branding for your business. The color scheme, the fonts chosen, the personality in the content you create, the feelings you want your target audience to feel, etc. Your mood board is the image that represents the feelings that you want your brand to portray to your audience. When you keep turning back to it, you can make sure everything you put out there is consistent with it. All your Instagram posts, all your content that you create, all your blog posts, all your sales pitches and email newsletters. Everything can be consistent when you keep that mood board in mind. It keeps you on track. It creates brand awareness.

How to Make a Mood Board

Don’t have a mood board but you are stuck on how to make one? This is where Pinterest comes in handy. Figure out your ideal audience, what you want your brand to say to them, and the feelings you want to invoke on them.

Not sure how to even get there? Sign up for my free brand building workbook to get super clear on the foundation of your brand.

When you find images on Pinterest that make you think what you want your brand to say, save them to a private board. Then go ahead and save 10 or so images and create a collage in canva.com or photoshop. All the images will come together in the end to create a unique, one of a kind brand baseline. It will give you clarity on your brand’s look and feel.

Above is an example of a mood board that I did for a client. Charlene, my client, is a hard working mother from the UK who quit her 9-5 job & started her own business. She helps women entrepreneurs ramp up their business using her experience from her previous job of many years.

She told me that she wanted a high-end brand that was feminine & sophisticated. This mood board was put together through a collaborative Pinterest board & confirmed we were on the same page. Her logo and brand board shows how I was able to pull styles & the overall feeling from the mood board. The result? A satisfied client & happy designer. Want to see more of my work for past clients? Head over here.