How to Moodboard (and build a cult following)

Summary

In this video, the speaker emphasizes the importance of creating a well-defined mood board or vision board when building a brand. By using platforms like Pinterest and Cosmos, designers can curate aesthetics, color palettes, and typography to create a cohesive brand identity. The speaker highlights the benefits of saving and organizing content on Instagram and TikTok for future reference. Tools like Canva, Figma, and Illustrator help assemble and refine mood boards. The process involves focusing on color, typography, and design elements to ensure consistency and clarity in your brand's visual language.

Takeaways

• 😀 Building a brand or marketing effort requires a clear vision and intentional planning, not just guessing.
• 😀 A mood board or vision board is essential for communicating your brand’s aesthetic and vision effectively.
• 😀 Pinterest is a powerful platform for gathering visual inspiration and creating mood boards with its effective recommendation system.
• 😀 Use Cosmos as an alternative to Pinterest, especially if you want to search by color for more tailored design inspiration.
• 😀 Instagram and TikTok offer excellent opportunities for collecting ideas, but it’s important to organize them into collections to avoid endless scrolling.
• 😀 Canva’s whiteboard feature is an excellent tool for organizing and visualizing your collected inspirations all in one place.
• 😀 When designing, focus on three key elements: colors, typography, and design motifs to craft a cohesive brand aesthetic.
• 😀 Identifying a brand’s color palette and visual style can help you align your own design choices and create a consistent vibe.
• 😀 Typography plays a crucial role in your brand’s mood, and identifying fonts that resonate with your vision can help strengthen your aesthetic.
• 😀 Design motifs and recurring visual elements (like certain shapes or icons) can help establish a recognizable, cohesive brand style.
• 😀 Practice is key in mood boarding. It takes experience and experimentation to refine how all elements come together to define your brand’s vibe.

Q & A

What is the main purpose of creating a mood board or vision board for a brand?

A mood board or vision board helps communicate the vision of a brand by organizing and visualizing the aesthetics, design elements, and style, which allows creators to make intentional decisions rather than guessing when it comes to branding, marketing, and design.

Why does the speaker recommend using Pinterest for mood boarding?

The speaker recommends Pinterest because it offers a vast array of visual inspiration and has a highly effective recommendation system, helping users dig deeper into specific design styles and aesthetics by providing related content based on what they've saved.

What is Cosmos, and how does it differ from Pinterest in terms of mood boarding?

Cosmos is another platform the speaker recommends, which is similar to Pinterest in terms of collecting visual inspiration. The key difference is that Cosmos allows users to search by color, making it easier to find designs with specific color palettes, enhancing the mood boarding process.

What role do colors play in the mood boarding process?

Colors are crucial because they set the tone and feel of a brand. By collecting visual elements with similar color palettes, creators can develop a cohesive color guide that communicates the overall vibe and aligns with the brand’s aesthetic.

How does the speaker use Canva for mood boarding?

The speaker uses Canva's whiteboard feature for mood boarding because it provides a large, flexible workspace to organize and visualize all design elements in one place. This allows the speaker to easily compare and analyze different items, such as colors, typography, and visual styles.

What is the importance of typography in mood boarding, and how is it analyzed?

Typography plays a significant role in defining a brand’s personality. The speaker analyzes typography by observing the fonts used in inspirational designs, checking their style (e.g., script, serif, sans serif), and ensuring they align with the overall mood and aesthetic of the brand. Tools like font identification platforms can help match fonts to their mood board.

Why is it important to categorize and organize saved content on platforms like Instagram and TikTok?

Categorizing and organizing saved content helps avoid the 'doom scrolling' trap and allows users to focus on finding and saving relevant inspiration. By creating different collections or boards, users can easily refer back to specific types of content, like surf designs or typography, for future reference when building their mood board.

What does the speaker mean by 'vibe' in the context of mood boarding?

In the context of mood boarding, the 'vibe' refers to the overall aesthetic, feeling, or style that a particular collection of design elements communicates. The vibe is created by the combination of color, typography, visual elements, and other design features that work together to evoke a specific emotion or identity for the brand.

How can the speaker use color pickers and droppers in their process?

The speaker uses color pickers and droppers to select specific colors from images, ensuring that the exact color matches their vision. These tools help them identify and capture color codes, which are then incorporated into their mood board to ensure consistent color use across the brand's design elements.

What is the significance of design elements like motifs and shapes in branding?

Design elements such as motifs, shapes, and patterns help reinforce the brand’s identity. The speaker notes recurring motifs, like Roman crowns or script fonts, across different brands to highlight how similar design elements can be used consistently to create a cohesive visual language for the brand.