Moodboard Like A Pro

It’s everyone’s favorite part of the branding process, of the business process maybe. We all love it because it’s fun, it’s visual and we are visual creatures, we get to hang out on Pinterest and we can call it “work”. I mean, sign me UP!⁠
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However, you may have moodboarded for “fun” but it brought you nowhere. Whether for a New Year vision board, a photoshoot, your brand design, or website. I’m sure you know exactly what I’m talking about. You collected pictures of things you liked, maybe taped them together on a piece of paper or organized Pinterest boards, and Voilà. Well no, pas voilà.⁠
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If you want to make the most of moodboarding and start moodboarding like a pro, listen closely, people. ⁠
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At AHBC Group, we are passionate about helping entrepreneurs launch and grow a brand that is authentic to them, their purpose, and their audience. We enjoy working with entrepreneurs who have a strong purpose, a clear vision and who are animated by ethical, eco-conscious, and inclusive values, who like to challenge the status quo, and are not afraid to build a truly unique brand. If that sounds like you and you would like to discuss your project with us, apply here!

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Transcript

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Market It! The podcast that inspires and guides authentic entrepreneurs to build the soulful brand of their dreams and lead a purpose-driven business. I'm Anne-Héloïse Chavin, the host of this podcast and the founder and Brand Builder in chief at AHBC Group, a branding agency based in Miami, Florida, and founder of the Dream Brand Club, a community of go-getters looking to build the brand of their dreams. 

So let's get into today's episode with such a cool topic, mood boarding. It's everyone's favorite part of the branding process of the whole business process maybe. We all love it. Because it's done. It's visual, and we are visual creatures. We get to hang out on Pinterest, and we can call it work. I mean, Sign me up. However, you may have mood-boarded for fun, but it brought you nowhere really. Whether it was for New Year Vision Board, a photo shoot your brand design, or your website. I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about. So you collected pictures or things you liked. Maybe tape them together on a piece of paper or organize them in Pinterest boards. And voila. And well, not voilà. If you want to make the most of mood boarding listen closely, people. 

So first things first, why are you mood-boarding? What's the goal? What's the purpose of it? Is it a vision board for the year ahead? So you can have a visual representation for your goals? Is it to define the visual direction for your IG feed? Is it the first step in your brand design journey? If so, are you working on it yourself or with a designer? Is it for a photoshoot that you're planning for each purpose, there will be a different mood board. So you need to get clear on that first, now that we got that out of the way. 

Number two is where do you find inspo. Some of my favorite sources for inspiration include Pinterest, which is always number one, Instagram. So for that I throughout my Instagram user journey, basically, save pictures into folders. So whenever I'm scrolling, and I find something interesting, and I know that I'm working on this on, or this project or mood board, I will save the pictures into designated folders so I can access them easier later. For design resources. Specifically, I like using Behance. And then also just the internet. So any website that inspires you, you can collect visuals from that, then another one is just the street. So visually, you're walking or driving and something inspires you. So you can take a picture and that's a mood boarding resource. And then you can also do that in a store. And lastly, the OG mood boarding resource magazines. These are also don't forget what you already have. So for instance, if you're selling a product, include shots of your product, if it's already developed, or mockups or packaging, mockups, like whatever you have already developed and out there. And you know, that's what it's going to be make sure to include that. This is important because you want to make sure that the end result is very cohesive by including what you already have into your mood board, you can make sure that all of this stuff around that, that everything fits. If it doesn't, either. The inspiration is not what you need right now. Like it's something that can be super cool looking but it doesn't fit your brand. Or maybe you realize that you may need to change something about what you currently have, if possible. So yeah, there are endless sources of inspiration and we often forget to use them all and we just do like one moodboarding session and call it a day. So that's wrong. So we want to get inspired by everything around us and make sure that we have a very holistic view in our mood board, whatever it is four. 

Point number three is the structure. So yes, mood boarding is a creative thing. It's supposed to be fun, I promise that it will be. But, you do need a structure if you want it to be effective. Otherwise, you will end up with tons of pictures from one area you want to cover. And that's it. For instance, some of our clients will only save pictures of color palettes, and maybe some photography, (we still love our clients, don't get me wrong). But that is very tragic for us. Because how do we know what you like in terms of fonts, website layouts, interior design of your store everything, you really need to have a holistic vision. So what you're going to do is to create categories and make sure that each category is covered with different sources of inspiration. And for that, what I suggest is just listing out on a piece of paper or a note on your phone, the categories that you will want to cover beforehand, before even looking at visuals, because the algorithms will show you what you already looking for in liking. So let's say you type branding for, I don't know a skincare brand, you're building a skincare brand, it's going to show you some stuff. And maybe you're more visually attracted to this or that. And it's just color palettes because you have that in mind already. And you know, the vision you have for the color palette for your brand, let's say then is going to keep showing you color palette examples. So if you scroll down on an already existing like something that you're pinning, and you scroll down on that specific picture, you're going to see similar things. So you're going to pin more and then even your Home tab is just going to show you color palettes. So then it's fine because when you're in that creative flow, you want to not miss out on any of those. And you want to keep adding to that to then like kind of sort through that. But also you want to not forget to then go back to your other categories, which if you're in a flow, then you will completely forget about those. So that's why you want to make sure you have them listed out beforehand. So those were three of my main tips for mood boarding overall and how to make mood boarding effective. And now in number four, what I want to share with you is exactly step-by-step or on process that we use to moodboard for let's say brand design. So mainly we will mood board for brand design or to plan for photoshoots. But I've also done it for a dream board, which is kind of like a vision board but much more intense for the new year. And I always then use the same process because I have a process with that. So it's the same you can apply it to whatever you choose to do. And then feel free to obviously make it your own. But that is what's working for us. 

So our process to Moodboard like a pro. 

Number one collect inspiration from all sources. So we scrape the entire internet, we already covered that. If you want the simple version, you can stick to Pinterest only. And you should get a really good amount from that. Plus a few shots from other sources. But make sure to think of the category aspect that I mentioned before. If it's a very intense mood board with lots of photos, we create sub boards in Pinterest, so it helps us kind of sort through either categories or sometimes dives. Because sometimes for a specific brand, we will have phones, colors, everything. And we're not categorizing them by category in Pinterest, but maybe will categorize them by the vibe that they have. 

So for instance, maybe one is very minimalist and the other one is super funky, and both could fit the brand. But it's two completely different universes. And so we want to make sure to separate them because maybe we find that we have those two visions, but usually it starts as just one main board and then we'll kind of see like, oh, we have two completely different things. It's not cohesive at all. Usually that is step one that I will do in like one work session, and then maybe spend some time doing other things or even lead like one or two days. 

So, between those two steps, and then after letting it marinate on Pinterest, we go through all of it. And that's when we take screenshots of all the ones that we still resonate with. And after having really an overview, because maybe what you started saving in the beginning doesn't fit that much, but it was like kickstarting you to start saving, and then finding more things that were what you want it, then you add those screenshots to corresponding folders. So for instance, fonts, color imagery, so those are the categories, so it goes in each folders. If you don't have that many, you can just do one main folder and be a bit more disorganized. If you do have quite a few, I would suggest like organizing them by folder, because also maybe after you're going back, or is just easier to manage that way. Then for the next step, I personally like to work on Illustrator. So that's what I do in most cases, where you can also use Canva, I have in the past, or PowerPoint, or even just print and paper, I have also used prints when I have like so many inspiration that I need kind of a visual. So in that case, I will even sometimes print the entire Pinterest board in a three format paper, so like bigger paper, and then cut each thing individually and lay it all out on the table to kind of see. So that helps to visually see and sort things through. Especially if you're not using Illustrator where we have like a way bigger board and like space to work. But on Canva, you're maybe a bit limited and you won't see all of the pictures that you're importing. Same with PowerPoint. So like it's hard to pre-visualize and like put things directly in your final board. So you can always do that the old printing paper method works. At this point, I import all of the photos. And I will create three boards for brand design mood boards specifically. So that's because we often have different styles, like I mentioned before, and remember that we want to end up with something cohesive, so we can mix them. 

Then I go and I add the pictures to the mood boards and make sure that I have at least one picture from each category in each port that's categorized by five, then sometimes I realize like Oh, in this category, like type, have something that fits for two mood boards. But for this one, like I don't have a funky type I didn't look for I looked for type. But there's nothing further thank you one. So then I can just go in and do more research on that specifically. But usually, if I did things kind of well, we should have something for everything, it does happen that we're missing something, in which case, we just go back to researching and just add those few things. 
So still, for brand mood boards, I will also add a color palette with colors that I take directly from the visuals. So that's for cohesiveness. And that's so the client can see kind of what the color palette could look like with that specific vibe, and what the end colors could look like. Sometimes we added in color palettes in our mood board, but sometimes it doesn't end up being the final one. Sometimes I will even add a color palettes that we saved. But I only take out one color that we really like and that fits the thing. So feel free to also cut and crop your pictures that you saved because maybe you liked a portion of that, but not everything fits. So that's one thing and then we're able to do that in Illustrator but you may not in other programs, but sometimes we will take an image and the image fits so good but the colors are wrong. So if we want something really cohesive to show the vision, then we will update the colors for that specific image. You don't have to go to those names. But that's just an idea that you can also sometimes recharge the photos so if you're not able to do that, it can be something like having a picture that was saved in color putting it in black and white because you know that is going to feed your vibe. So feel free to also mess up with the original visuals that he saved. 

And last but not least, I add three to four adjectives that describe that moodboard type, and I also titled them. So yes, we planes, our mood boards, sue us. That's our job, I feel like it really helps to kind of set the tone. And in the client presentation, the way we presented is we have the title slide first, to kind of set the tone for that mood. And then we have the mood board with the colors and adjectives on it. When we look at it, we can refer back to the brand values and the tone that we define during the brand strategist tab. So this is or why in that case, if you don't have a full-on brand strategy, and see what's the best match. So all mood boards should usually match your why. So sometimes we will just make a choice based on the target market, or just based on our preference or the client's intuition and personal preference. 

So now you have a mood board that you can actually use and that serves a purpose. You're very welcome. 

I hope that this episode prior you value, thank you so much for listening to market it. As always, if you enjoyed this episode, it would mean a lot if you could take a few minutes to rate and review the podcast. Follow along on Instagram at AHBC group and at Dream Brand Club so we can stay in touch. And don't forget to join the Dream Brand Club on Facebook. Talk soon!