If you are a brand owner and you want to hire a designer, it might sometimes be challenging to convey the qualities of your brand even when you know your goals, objectives, vision, and culture. This is because defining your brand in words can be difficult, especially if you are starting.
Unfortunately, designers may not know what you want, which may lead to frustrations if you do not get what you want. The truth is that designers are good at creating brand presentations, but they do not have all the answers. Therefore, it is your responsibility to communicate clearly. So how do you do it?
Visuals can explain things words cannot, and one picture can convey more than a thousand words to consumers. Mood boards are excellent tools for creating images that define your brand, and they will help you save time and get the best website feel.
What are Mood Boards?
Mood boards, also known as inspiration boards, are like collages of various images, objects, and texts that explain your brand. They are usually used in different areas such as interior design, fashion, visual design, and business projects. Mood boards are useful tools as they provide the aesthetic feel of your web page even before it’s done.
Both website owners and designers can use this tool to make their work easier and avoid going in the wrong direction. Designers also use a web design mood board to ensure they have met clients’ expectations. Some of the things that can be incorporated into a mood board to achieve a specific style are;
- Images
- Colours
- Fonts
- Patterns
- Grids
- Layout
- Graphics
- Basic text
- Screenshots
Why Use a Mood Board?
Communication
The most common reason why people need mood boards is to convey the right message about their brands. Clients and designers often misunderstand each other when it comes to business projects. But with a mood board, it becomes easier to achieve the best results.
Affirmation
If you already know what you want for your brand, a mood board will help enhance your message to stakeholders and consumers. It will support your identity and affirm the concepts, culture, and values of your business.
Guidance
Mood boards are great tools for providing guidance. It not only helps designers know what you want. It also allows you to focus on your brand identity when creating business cards, logos, and many other marketing materials that represent your brand.
Inspiration
If you already have a brand but don’t know how to represent it, a mood board will help you do that. It gives a clear picture of how you want your brand to look, and what visions, attributes, and emotions you want it to have.
Saves time and Money
Many people often overlook how a mood board can help them save a lot of time and money. Once you have the right message for your brand, it saves you time, and most importantly, you save money as you will not need to spend incurring fees to have several people design your website.
Forms of Mood Boards?
There are two types of mood boards; digital and physical mood boards. Although most people do their businesses online, some people still prefer the old-school method.
Digital Mood Boards
Digital mood boards are the easiest to create as there are plenty of free images to use on various online platforms. It also gives you the advantage of using as many colours as you want and choosing the images you like best.
Physical Mood Boards
If you have to make a physical mood board for your brand, all you will need is a foam board base and mount images on the surface. You can get pictures from newspapers, supply stores, old books, magazines, fabric stores, etc.
Benefits of Using a Mood Board in Your Business
According to Asia Media Studio, a website design firm in Bangkok, mood boards are great for conveying the right message to both the client and the designer. The goal is to achieve a great website look without much effort, surprises and disappointments. Everyone should feel comfortable with the final results. Below are some of the most common benefits of mood boards include;
Ensures the Project Is In the Right Direction
Before wasting a lot of time, money and effort, ensure that your designer understands your interpretation of the goals and vision of the brand. This will allow the designer to know what is expected of him from the beginning of the project.
Communicates the Values of Your Brand
The most important thing is to ensure you have conveyed the right message about your brand. Let other people understand what the business is all about. Mood boards help you to accomplish this. For example, selecting a specific colour for the company sets a specific mood, patterns tell more about the values, and topography creates a statement.
When all these things are combined, they provide a particular mood and give deep meaning and messages to the audience. In short, mood boards bring out the right feelings and creativity.
Mood Boards Can Be Shared With Professionals
This is one great thing about website mood boards. They can be shared with other professionals, especially when you want to work with them. This is to let them know the goals and values of your brand. Other professionals may include; Social media managers, brand photographers, and PR representatives.
Sharing your mood board with professionals is very important as it shows consistency and eventually builds trust among your followers.
Fast and better Results
Since mood boards are good for guiding you on how to go about the project, it becomes easier to figure out what is best for the brand. This also gives the designers confidence that they are working on something that will pay off. Apart from that, mood boards minimize the time spent on revisions.
Why Designers Need Mood Boards
As mentioned earlier, mood boards are essential for both business owners and designers. Otherwise, how will you communicate effectively with your designers? Here are reasons why designers need to have mood boards in the design process;
Smooth Design Process
Designers spend a lot of time designing a project to achieve the best look, and sometimes what might look professional to them might be a trial to the client. This may lead to a big fail for both the client and designer. Instead, designers use mood boards to make the process less effortless, save time, and get close to perfection.
Create a Better Relationship with Clients
Many clients usually expect more from designers, and if they do not achieve what they want, they may never hire the designer. To avoid this, designers take advantage of mood boards to have an idea of what clients want. This greatly helps and works perfectly well.
No Need to Play Safe
With mood boards, designers do not need to limit their creations. They can play around with images, and colours and use their UX experiences to achieve something unique and likable. Mood boards enhance creativity, and a simple twist to the original version may convey the right and best message to the audience.
Makes the Process Fun
Mood boards allow designers to brainstorm. They can create various images and styles in their head before starting the design.
How to Create a Mood Board
To create an outstanding mood board, you need to focus on the following steps to achieve a great look. They include;
Brainstorm the Theme of Your Brand
The first step is to come up with ideas of how you want to represent your brand. Think of the colour, style, materials, and search engine friendly keywords you would like to use. Look for a template and various inspirations online to get the best ideas for your brand. There are two kinds of templates you can use;
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Loose College
This is the easiest to use when creating a mood board as you do not have to pay attention to small details such as the font and colour. If you don’t need to include details about the brand, this would be a suitable template to use. All you will need to do is find pictures, and the right texture, and the template will still pass the message to the audience.
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Refined Template
This is a more formal approach to creating mood boards. It is suitable for those who want to include extreme details about their brands. If you are starting, use this template to let your target group understand your brand.
Collect the Necessary Elements
This is usually the most tiring process, but thankfully the internet is filled with free tools and images you can use to get the resources you need. If you do not find the taste you are looking for, you could hire someone to create for you a simple picture that will match the rest of the images you want to use.
Review and Present Your Mood Board
By now, you will have all the elements you need to complete the job. Select images carefully and ensure they reflect the main idea. If you are a designer, start by explaining to your client how the mood board will effectively pass the message to the audience.
Also, let them know that you are ready to change anything that does not convey the original message. The most important thing is to listen to the client’s feedback to determine if any changes should be made. Making revisions at this point is easy and less time-consuming.
Things to Consider When Creating Mood Boards
Get the Right Balance
When creating your first mood board, things can get confusing, especially if you have not found a good balance. The problem is that when you put too many colours and images, the main idea looks exaggerated or overloaded. And when you put too little, the main message may be missed out, and people fail to understand the direction of your brand.
The main goal is to find the right balance to make your brand clear to the right audience. To achieve this, start with many items and then remove what you feel does not align with the goal and values of the brand.
Aim Correctly
The purpose of having a mood board is to ensure the qualities of your brand have been well conveyed to your target group. When creating one, ask yourself what your primary target is. Is it male or female? Is it married or single? This will allow you to pick the right colours and images that they may find appealing.
Select the Right Image
When creating mood boards, you cannot just pick any pictures and use them. The images you select must convey certain emotions and explain more about brand quality. It could be strength, energy, leadership, sophistication, or simplicity. Find as many images as you can to ensure you have the right message for your audience.
Be consistent
Consistency is key to achieving what you want. Focus and stick to one message to build trust. Anytime you want to add or minus something from your mood board, ask yourself how it will impact your customers’ moods. Content management is also crucial as it greatly determines if people will stick to your brand.
Be Creative
There are so many ways to be creative with your mood boards. Remember there is a lot of competition in various niches and therefore, think of ways you can stand out. Using real-life images, different shapes, and taking advantage of the news are some of the ways you can improve your mood board.
Mood boards are the best tools to use to bring out the real message about your business. Creating one is the first step you should take to avoid minor mistakes as it helps you identify and develop your company. They also help you convey the right message to designers, stakeholders, and other professionals so that they can stick to the goals, culture, and values of your brand.
The best thing about creating digital mood boards is that the elements you need are readily available online, and you can be as creative as possible. It allows your brand to be unique and easily noticeable by your audience.
