How to Create a Brand Identity - Research & Mood Board
Summary
TLDRThis video tutorial offers a comprehensive guide on creating a brand identity from scratch, focusing on conducting thorough brand research and crafting mood boards. The host takes viewers through the process of designing for a fictional urban garden brand, 'Rootful,' exploring competitors, audience preferences, and industry trends. The session includes practical steps like using Milanote for research collection, analyzing competitors' messaging, and leveraging Google Scholar for insights. The goal is to present diverse mood boards to clients, ensuring the brand direction resonates with their vision and preferences.
Takeaways
- 📚 Conduct thorough brand research before starting a project to understand the market and competitors.
- 🔎 Use tools like Milanote to collect and organize research materials, including screenshots and images.
- 🌟 Analyze competitors' design, messaging, and tone to identify industry norms and opportunities for differentiation.
- 📈 Consider the audience's needs and preferences, and how they align with the brand's vision and goals.
- 📝 Document key findings and insights in a report to serve as a foundation for the design concepts.
- 📈 Look into trends and opportunities in the industry to inform brand strategy and design direction.
- 👥 Understand the target audience's lifestyle and interests to tailor the brand's appeal effectively.
- 🌱 Explore different platforms and sources for research, including Google Scholar, to gain a comprehensive view.
- 🎨 Create mood boards to visually represent potential brand directions and gather inspiration.
- 💬 Present research findings and mood boards to clients to facilitate discussion and refine the brand's direction.
- 🔑 Ask 'why' to understand clients' preferences and dislikes to guide the creation of unique brand concepts.
Q & A
What is the main focus of the video series?
-The main focus of the video series is to guide creatives on how to create a brand identity from scratch, including conducting brand research and creating mood boards.
What is the name of the fictional brand the video uses as an example?
-The fictional brand used in the video is called 'Rootful', an urban garden aimed at fostering community and promoting local and sustainable food production.
What are the key goals of Rootful as described in the video?
-Rootful's goals are to provide a space for city dwellers to meet and build community, to encourage the consumption of locally produced vegetables, and to educate people about sustainable food production.
What is the first step in conducting brand research as outlined in the video?
-The first step in conducting brand research is to look into similar companies, both competitors and potential competitors, to understand how they use design to convey information and what messaging they use.
How does the video suggest collecting and organizing brand research?
-The video suggests using Milanote to collect and organize brand research, including screenshots of competitors' logos, designs, and messaging.
What is the importance of analyzing competitors' messaging in brand research?
-Analyzing competitors' messaging helps to understand what information they believe their customers care about and how they prefer to be spoken to, which can inform the tone and approach of the brand being created.
Why is it suggested to look at social media during brand research?
-Looking at social media during brand research helps to understand the platforms that the client plans to use and how they can best fit the audience's preferences, as well as to gather insights into competitors' social media strategies.
What is the role of scientific papers in the brand research process as described in the video?
-Scientific papers can provide valuable insights into consumer behavior and preferences, such as reasons people support urban farms, which can inform the brand's design and messaging strategies.
How does the video suggest using Google Scholar for brand research?
-The video suggests using Google Scholar to search for trends and studies related to the industry, such as urban farming, to find relevant and recent research that can inform brand strategy.
What is the purpose of creating mood boards in the brand identity creation process?
-Creating mood boards helps to visually explore and present different design directions and concepts for the brand, allowing for a better understanding of the brand's visual identity and facilitating discussions with clients.
How does the video recommend presenting the research findings and mood boards to clients?
-The video recommends compiling the research findings and mood boards into a presentation, discussing key takeaways, and exploring the client's preferences and reasons for their likes or dislikes to guide the brand concept creation.
Outlines
🌿 Brand Identity Creation Process
This paragraph introduces a series on creating a brand identity from scratch, focusing on conducting brand research and creating mood boards. The speaker discusses the importance of understanding the project's prerequisites and conducting effective brand discovery meetings. A fictional brand, 'Rootful,' an urban garden aiming to build a community around local food production and sustainability, is used as a case study. The speaker outlines the steps of brand research, including examining competitors' design and messaging, and emphasizes the need to analyze industry trends and opportunities.
🔎 Deep Dive into Competitor Analysis and Market Research
The speaker details the process of conducting competitor analysis by visiting their websites and social media platforms, focusing on design elements, messaging, and tone. The aim is to understand what competitors are doing well and identify potential opportunities for differentiation. The importance of considering industry norms and the possibility of disrupting them is highlighted. The speaker also discusses the significance of researching brands that appeal to the same audience but are in different industries, using 'Rootful' as an example to explore relevant audience preferences and behaviors.
📈 Analyzing Trends and Design Styles in the Industry
This section delves into researching industry trends and design styles, like a journalist following multiple sources. The speaker uses Google Scholar to find scientific papers on urban farms, highlighting the importance of sample size and recency of studies. Key findings from a paper on urban farm support are discussed, including the significance of confidence and pleasantness in consumer decisions. The speaker also mentions using Google and Pinterest trends to understand consumer interests and aesthetic preferences, which inform the brand's design and messaging strategy.
🎨 Crafting Mood Boards and Presenting Research Findings
The speaker describes the process of creating mood boards to explore different visual directions for the brand. They emphasize the importance of collecting a wide range of inspiration from various sources and using tools like Milanote for organization. Three distinct mood boards are presented, each representing a different approach to the brand's visual identity. The speaker also discusses the importance of presenting research findings and mood boards to the client, using Keynote and PDF formats, to ensure the client's preferences and ideas are incorporated into the final brand concept.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Brand Identity
💡Brand Research
💡Mood Boards
💡Urban Garden
💡Community
💡Sustainability
💡Millennials
💡Trends
💡Competitor Analysis
💡Presentation
💡Visual Direction
Highlights
Introduction to a series on creating a brand identity from scratch.
Emphasis on conducting thorough brand discovery meetings as a prerequisite for the project.
Explanation of the process to conduct brand research and create mood boards.
Designing for a fictional urban garden brand called 'rootful', focusing on community and sustainability.
Importance of understanding the client's customers, vision, and inspirations from other brands.
Conducting brand research by analyzing competitors' design, messaging, and customer engagement strategies.
Utilizing Milanote for collecting and organizing research materials and screenshots.
Analyzing competitors' messaging to understand their tone and customer communication approach.
Examining social media strategies of competitors to gauge audience engagement and platform fit.
Incorporating findings into a research report using a template for consistency.
Researching brands that appeal to the same audience but are in different industries.
Exploring industry trends and design styles through various research methods.
Using Google Scholar to find scientific papers on urban farming and consumer behavior.
Identifying key factors such as 'confidence' and 'pleasantness' from research for brand strategy.
Conducting a basic Google search for urban farming trends and their relevance to the brand.
Using Pinterest Trends and Google Trends to understand search terms and consumer interests.
Drawing conclusions from research to guide brand design and messaging.
Collecting inspiration for mood boards from various sources to explore different design directions.
Creating multiple mood boards to represent different brand directions and concepts.
Using tools like Milanote and Adobe Illustrator to organize and refine mood boards.
Presenting mood boards and key research findings to the client for feedback and direction.
Importance of understanding client preferences and the rationale behind their likes and dislikes.
Finalizing the research report and presenting the findings and mood boards to the client.
Transcripts
hi creatives and welcome back to the
series on how to create a brand identity
from scratch if you missed part one and
two where we looked at everything that
happens before you start a project and
also how to conduct really good brand
discovery meetings I'll make sure to add
those in the descriptions you can go
check them out first if you like today
I'm going to take you through how to
conduct really good brand research and
create mood boards so we're gonna take
it from how to find the information that
we need put together research reports
create mood boards and then how to
present all of this to our clients to
make it a little bit easier to follow
along I thought we would design this for
a fictional brand so I decided that
we're going to create this for an urban
Garden called rootful their goal is to
have a space for people who live in a
city to come and meet and build
community to have a way for them to eat
more locally produced vegetables but
also to learn about our food production
and how to be more sustainable overall
we're actually as a family right now
trying to grow all of our own vegetables
ourselves so this would be a really fun
exercise for me as well and a way to
learn a little bit more about Urban
Gardens last time in the discovery
meeting we talked to our clients about
their customers their vision and other
brands that they feel inspired by today
our job is to look at Trends and
opportunities in this market and see
what we can use when we create the brand
ourselves the first step is to conduct
the brand research and I'd like to break
this up into a couple different steps
first I like to look into similar
companies both competitors that my
clients have mentioned but also
companies that I think could be a
competitor that maybe they missed first
I visit their website and I look for a
few different things I like to see how
they use design to convey information
like for example what Photography they
use how they use layout and colors and
maybe if they use illustrations or
infographics for example
I also look at their logo I take
screenshots of everything and I add them
to milanote so I have a place to collect
all of my research you can also use the
Mila note extension to grab the images
directly and put them into a board the
next thing I look for on the website is
messaging how do they pitch their
business how is the tone is it friendly
and casual or formal and to the point
for example this tells us both what
information that they think their
customers care about but also how they
like to be spoken to if a lot of
competitors are using the same approach
we need to ask ourselves if it's because
it's really working or maybe because
people are a little bit worried to step
away from the norm so in some cases it
could be an industry where you can
disrupt and you can come up with a
completely different approach and that
can work great but in some Industries
let's say for example you're a lawyer
you might not want to have a super happy
fun go lucky tone or if you're an ice
cream shop you might not want to be
super duper serious so sometimes these
tones work because they are for a
specific industry with an audience who
is expecting something but try to look
into it and analyze if what competitors
are doing is the smart choice or
something that could be disrupted next
up I do the same thing on social media I
focus on the social media platforms that
my client has decided to use and also
that seems like the best fit for the
audience in the case of rootful I think
Tech talk and YouTube might be the best
platforms since we're trying to reach
people who want growing tips probably in
video formats and also who want quick
updates about what's actually happening
in this Urban Garden so they can come
visit and take part
now that we know a little bit more about
the competitors and we have these images
and screenshots to draw from I like to
start adding them to my report as I go
so I add in the images from the
different competitors and I make little
notes of takeaways and things we can
learn so for example things I think they
did really well or things I think could
be opportunities that we could use for
our own brand this report uses a
template that I've created so the
sections are always more or less the
same after the research meeting with my
client I send them this report and that
way they can always look back and see
what we came up with but it also works
as the foundation for the concepts that
we will Design next up is brands that
appeal to the same audience so they're
not in the same industry but they share
the same audience as the brand we're
designing for I do the exact same thing
of visiting their website and social
media and I write down things that I
observe for rootful the audience is
Millennials who live in the city and
want a break from their busy day-to-day
lives it can either be someone who works
really long hours and want a hobby or a
place to visit that is really relaxing
or it could be families with young kids
for example that want a place for them
to play and spend time together maybe
with other parents as well so keeping
this in mind I think brands with a
similar audience might be things like
really kid-friendly cafes yoga places
libraries other places where these
people would spend their time that would
be more of what we call the third space
so not home or work but the third space
where people are willing to meet in
their free time next up we want to look
at Trends and design styles that are
happening in this industry and I would
say that this part of the research is
probably the least straightforward there
are lots of different ways to do this
and you have to spend some time trying
to find different answers digging around
a little bit following a couple
different paths and see what you come up
with think of it a bit like if you were
a journalist and you were following
different sources to see the whole
picture in the story so let's give it a
try on Google Scholar I might search for
trends for Urban farms for example and
see if we can find something okay so
here's a really interesting paper that
looks at what those living in cities
care about when they decide for or
against supporting an urban farm
scientific papers they can seem a little
bit intimidating but there's a couple
different things you can look out for to
make sure that you find a good
scientific study the first one is the
sample size so if you have very few
people or very few different
organizations to took part that means
that the sample size was really small
and it's harder to make any kind of
deductions from it so the more people
who participated the more data you have
to actually make conclusions from it can
also be a good idea to see when it was
published so you actually have different
filters in Google Scholar where you can
make sure that you're finding something
that is from the last couple years and
maybe not a study on Urban Farms from
the 80s for example because that might
not be as relevant right now start with
the abstract and see if there's any
information that might be interesting in
this particular study right away I can
see that we mentioned a couple different
reasons that people want to support
Urban Farms like having more food
security when we see stronger effects
from global warming and higher food
prices and this is super interesting and
something that we can point out when we
suggest designs and messaging for the
brand I want to learn a bit more so I'll
go down to the results and discussion
section this is where they talk about
what they found and what that means
first off we can see that a big part of
the audience is a similar age to our
customers so that's really good and we
can also see there are two factors that
are key for adopting Urban farms and
those are confidence and pleasantness it
might just be me but I want to
understand what those things mean
because I think they can have a lot of
different meanings so I'm just going to
click command F and write confidence to
read their definition because most
scientific papers always Define all of
the different terms that they use and
then I do the same for pleasantness it
seems like confidence is how confident
you feel that you can take part both
financially and from a Time perspective
so when we think about how we can apply
this to the brand we might want the
brand assets to show how easy it is to
be involved offering ways to get
involved that are casual and not a
continuous commitment for example
for pleasantness it's more about how
nice the environment is to be around so
something we can put in our research
report could be that we need to showcase
the really pretty parts of the garden
how well adapted the garden is for
smaller kids for example I add all this
to my report and I make sure to add the
source so you can do this in a couple
different ways you could either link it
directly in the text or you could have a
reference list at the end of the
document this is what I tend to do and
then I just add a quick reference to the
author's name and the year it was
published in the actual main text and
then at the end of the document I had a
reference list I used the Harvard method
so there's different methods of citing
and a really quick way to do this is
just to use a tool called cite this for
me here you just add in the website link
or a book ISBN or the article DOI number
for example and then it creates both the
text and full reference for you so that
is super quick next I just do a basic
Google search for Trends in urban and
farming and see what different paths we
can find that we could go down I'm
looking for articles or even Trend
reports that will tell me why people
want to join an urban garden and this is
also a great place to find images for my
mood boards I can see that Hydroponics
are becoming much more popular for urban
Farms but it's not exactly what we're
after because rootful doesn't really
have hydroponic systems as part of their
Garden I can see a couple Farms that
seem a bit more similar to rootful so
I'll visit those websites and see what
they think yeah okay so we can see that
these are both very focused on community
and creating this Garden together to see
how this fits in with our Millennial
audience we can see if we can find
articles or reports that talk about the
role of community for Millennials we're
looking for articles that feel like they
come from very credible sources and I
also like to check out a couple
different ones before I form a kind of
conclusion about what I think this is
why it's really important to have time
to do the research and not feel like you
have to quickly rush to find something
but make sure you have the time to
browse and really take your time with it
I can see that online communities are
important to Millennials but I can't see
articles that directly talk about
in-person communities
I do see that Millennials are much more
likely to live alone than older
Generations so perhaps there's more of a
need for community and to find out I see
if I can find articles that talk about
loneliness and see what they say about
Millennials okay so Millennials are
reporting that they're likely to have
only a few friends or no close friends
and a lot more people live by themselves
so this could be a great opportunity to
show how the Urban Garden can be a place
where you belong and I think we need to
be careful not to make it seem like you
have to be a really expert Gardener to
partake if you want to look for Trends
in Search terms a few great places to
look are Pinterest Trends and Google
Trends this will show you what terms
people use to find different Urban
Gardens or home growing and it can give
us some idea of how the messaging can
work for example we can see that Urban
Green Space has gone up with 150 percent
in search in the last 12 months we can
also see on Pinterest trends that
Cottage Garden meaning these cute
Gardens with lots of flowers and garden
Aesthetics are both up in search a lot
this could tell us that people really
care about having a space that's really
cozy to spend time in and kind of
reinforces this pleasantness factor that
we saw from the scientific paper so now
that we've done a bit of research we can
draw three different conclusions I think
first off people want an urban Garden
that looks really nice and that they
enjoy spending time in two is that
Community is a great way to draw in
Millennials who want to feel part of
something and don't want to feel lonely
and three it should feel really easy to
get involved you shouldn't feel like
there's a monthly commitment or a weekly
commitment or like you have to be an
expert to be involved you should be able
to just drop by and enjoy the garden
with this in mind I want to collect a
bunch of inspiration that I can use for
my mood boards so I look on Pinterest
unsplash dribble be hands and in books
that I have in my library for a typical
project I like to spend about two days
collecting information so this is
obviously a super shortened version but
I hope that I can give you a good idea
of how to approach the brand research
stage I already have an idea in mind
that we would want one mood board to
feel a bit more like a charity and
focused on community one that is more
focused on the kind of cottage core cozy
aesthetic and one that is perhaps a bit
more like Botanical and focuses on
bringing in illustrations of plants but
I don't want to get more specific than
that before I've had a look at some
designs and see where my mind goes when
I look for images I try to find a nice
mix of different applications so in this
case I know they will need a logo a
website social media templates and
signage in the actual Garden so I want
to find examples for all of these if I
can I also think photography is such an
important part so I want to find at
least one or two images that can guide
each mood board as I find things I just
use the Milano extension to add the
images to My overall mood board and then
I'll sort and put it all together later
I want the stage to be really free and
just creative and the space for us to
just look for inspiration without
feeling like you have to be creating
already okay great so now we have lots
of different inspiration images that we
can use now I want to go into Mila note
and divide them up to the three separate
mood boards so I can make sure that I
have enough images to work with once we
start designing you could definitely do
just one mood board but I find that it's
quite nice to have three different mood
boards or at least more than one so that
you can explore some different
directions at this super early stage
when the stakes are a lot lower so I
like to have either a safe a medium and
maybe a slightly more adventurous mood
board or three different directions that
I think could all be interesting but
that are super different so that we can
look together with our client and see
actually surprisingly this direction
works really well let's explore that so
this stage is supposed to be really
playful and we really want to be
exploring different options you could
definitely make the mode board straight
in Mira note but I like to use the pen
tool and add text and other details to
make the mood boards feel a little bit
more like the images are all from the
same brand so I personally like to make
them in illustrator
I make the mood boards the same size as
my keynote Pages because I'll put all of
my key research findings and the mood
boards all into one presentation that I
can share with my client during the
meeting I usually try to start with the
colors for each mood board and this way
there's a clear kind of visual Direction
and I can see how they differ from each
other I also want to make sure that the
typography has Clear Directions so if I
really like one of the images but the
typography is really different from the
other ones in the same mood board I
might block out that area and add text
myself the goal is for each mood board
to have a really distinct Direction so
we want to make sure that everything
matches and feels like it could fit into
the same brand another good idea at the
mood board stage can be to look into
stock illustrations or Graphics that you
can use because this means that you
don't need to spend all this time making
something just for the mood board but
you can still get that feeling that
you're after
so now I think we're at a point where
I'm gonna actually say that I'm done
with these mood boards I feel like you
can always keep going and find new
things you want to tweak but I'm gonna
be happy with this so for the first one
we've gone for a much more modern Vibe
and the idea here is to make it feel
like a place for young people to come
people who wanted to be kind of like
inspired by museums and cool cafes so I
wanted to have that direction in there
in case that's something my client wants
to pursue the second one is a lot more
around Botanicals a much softer Vibe
where we have illustrations and it feels
like layering and almost a little bit
like kind of scrapbooking where it feels
like the garden is more natural and
grows a little bit at its own pace and
so here we really want to create this
calm feeling of a place that you can
come to when you need a bit of time for
the third one I wanted to be a bit more
of this college core feeling and here I
wanted it to be lots of flowers colors
like you'd have fun picnics and lots of
really fun events where you can bring
your kids and there's always a lot of
energy and movement I've used these more
playful illustrations here here and this
little dotted line to kind of create
more of a DIY feel to make it feel a
little bit less intimidating once I feel
comfortable with my three mood boards I
add them into my keynote here I also add
the key takeaways for my research the
client will get the full research report
after the meeting but I just want to
discuss a few key takeaways that we can
incorporate into the brand so the
presentation could look something like
this we cover what the competitors look
like opportunities for their own brand
visual Trends Trends and psychology for
Their audience and lastly the mood
boards I also like to show that how
might be questions that we came up with
in the discovery and make suggestions
for how we can solve them for example if
one of the how might be questions for
rootful was how might we create a brand
that encourages new people to visit the
garden my response could be to focus on
how easy it is to join in and using
really aesthetic images to show how
lovely the garden is how much
information you put really is down to
the scope of the project if let's say
your creating a website and social media
templates then you might want to include
examples from competitors or from their
own current brand where you point out
opportunities for example during the
meeting with my client I take them
through each slide of the presentation
one by one and discuss what we found I
make a note of any preferences that they
have and any other findings that maybe
they have to add that we can then put
into the research report or look into
further when I present them with boards
to my client I make sure that they
understand that all of these are curated
directions specifically made for them we
have not designed anything uniquely this
is all a collection of things that
already exist in the market and this is
just for us to make sure that we're
understanding the visual direction that
they are interested in taking because
although these are all curated we still
want to make sure they feel really
excited about their own brand so
personal taste and preference does come
in a little bit they can like one of the
mood words really strongly or they can
like different bits and pieces from them
so that we can create a really Dynamic
concept that will take an into
consideration the different things that
they're interested in a really key thing
here is to always ask why so if your
client for example really likes a logo
you can say really good perfect that's
helpful to know why do you like that
logo is it the color is it the
typography is it the lockup is it like
that it feels really playful or really
Dynamic try to get to the bottom of why
because if you end up with just a
collection of things that they like but
you're not quite sure why it's really
really difficult to use that as a guide
when you're creating your own Concepts
we also want to let them know that
dislikes are just as helpful as likes so
we don't want them to tiptoe around
anything just to make sure they're not
hurting our feelings because we want to
know everything all what they like and
all what they don't like after the
meeting I added any last information to
the research report and I export the
keynote to a PDF and then I add both of
these documents to the client portal I
hope this was helpful in the next
episode we're gonna actually create the
brand concepts for root fall which feels
super exciting so if you want to join in
make sure that you're subscribed and you
hit the notification Bell so you can see
when that video comes out thank you so
much for watching good luck with your
projects and see you next time
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