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DIY Brand Journey: How to Create a Mood board

Investing in your brand is a huge (and pretty terrifying) step, we totally get that.

If you feel you are not quite ready to seek guidance from a professional designer, there is no reason why you cannot begin to craft your own brand. The first step would be to create a mood board and colour palette and here’s how we’d do that…

With every branding client, in the early stages, we go through a process to design and create a moodboard for their business. Now we completely understand that many of you aren’t quite ready to make the huge leap and invest in branding with me (or another incredible designer of course), so we thought we’d whip up a template for you to create a moodboard for yourself!

Don’t panic, you don’t have to know how to use Photoshop to create a mood board. We spent what feels like an eternity learning the Adobe suite so we won’t make you do the same! We have actually created these using a FREE program called Canva.com – if you haven’t heard of this then we may just have changed your life today – it’s a bold statement but we’re pretty serious! It is essentially a drag and drop template, you can change the background colour, text, font etc! It is fully customisable! 

A mood board should sum up the way you want your business to look and to feel. It can be a collection of images, materials and pieces of text that align with your brand. You can create a moodboard using scraps of magazines or even cut-offs from certain fabrics, however we prefer to create moodboards digitally. It allows you to swap out images easily, and if you change your mind, nothing is fixed. Because spoiler alert, your brand and therefore your moodboard should grow with you and change is inevitable. 

So where to begin?

01. Setting the foundations

By this stage, you should have a clear idea of who your ideal audience is (if not, check back to my site real soon because we am going to create a workbook that talks about this in detail). It is so important to acknowledge your audience and address them. Sure, you need to love your brand and it needs to align with you, but it’s paramount that it aligns with your audience too.

02. Start with inspiration

One of the tasks we set all my clients is to create a Pinterest board with inspiration. We suggest they pin 5 websites or blog designs that they like aesthetically (it can relate to their niche or be completely different), 5 logo styles they like, 5 images that they feel represent their brand the best and 5 colour palettes too! It’s then my job to remind clients that this is purely for inspiration, there is no point in recreating something that someone else has done already. However, if you aren’t working closely with me or another designer, you will have to remind yourself of this!

So this is going to be your next step, create a secret Pinterest board and follow the rules above. We would aim for 5 of each category, if you find more, it can become very overwhelming and may even lead you off track. So feel free to save anything that you are drawn to, but go back to finalise your 5 for each category so you are left with only those that align with you and your business. 

03. Time to start building

Okay so you have dwindled down your collection of pins on your Pinterest board and you are now ready to start creating the final visual of your mood board. So take some of your images from your Pinterest board,  which you can easily drag and drop to upload into the Canva software and voila! It is SO easy! We recommend creating this final board, as opposed to leaving your ideas on your secret board, because you can place it anywhere you work from. Maybe if you’re setting up a cute desk space, print it out! You can even send it out to a designer to help you with social media graphics, easy! 

If you’re ready to create a moodboard for your new business venture, sign up to our newsletter to get your hands on your freebie template. You will also receive our newsletter updates so you’ll be first to know what is happening in the Studio.

Create a Mood Board with our Canva template:

wine-glass-and-bottle-sit-on-table-with-colour-palette-design
moodboard-template-colour-palette-template-free-for-canva

First steps when you’re ready to create a mood board in Canva:

01.

You will need to visit www.canva.com and sign up using your email address. Verify your account and you are ready to go! The software runs from your desktop so you will always need an internet connection to create something. The software is completely free, however they do have a premium paid version – it is not at all necessary to purchase this, although it is good to note that you do have access to thousands more elements – fonts, images, illustrations, templates , ability to resize any template etc which may or may not be a benefit to you!

02.

Canva is relatively straight forward to use. You can toggle through the options on the left-hand sidebar, they have templates, photos (these are ones available for free or to purchase through Canva), elements, text, background, uploads (these are your images you’ve uploaded) and folders.    

03.

There is also a sub-menu at the top of the workspace. You will notice the options change depending on what element you have selected. You will see options to change the size, colour, copy, delete, alignment, transparency, and also under the three dots is position – this is super helpful if you need to bring an element in front of another! That can be a little frustrating at times – at least it used to be for us!

04.

Within the templates, we have created grids for you to drag and drop the uploaded images from your Pinterest board. If you hover over one of those grids, the image will then automatically fill up the space. Changed your mind? Simple hit the undo button at the top of the workspace. Of course, if you wanted to add even more elements, more images, more text etc you can do so using the menu on the left-hand side.

05.

Once you open my template, you will see we have shown you an example of the mood board that I created for Janie Janes Florist. Janie still uses this mood board regularly, she even has it pinned to her notice board above her desk! Then you will see the blank templates ready for you to get your creative juices flowing. 

Ta da!

We think that summarises how we begin my branding process and now you can give yourself a head start with your own self-created branding. We would love to see your creations, so please tag me on Instagram and hashtag #madewiththaifolk

Oh and if you are still wanting to tear your hair out at the thought of this, check out our Offerings page to see exactly how we could help you!

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