“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”

-Pablo Picasso

As you know, building a brand does call for creative thinking, but thankfully, there’s a method to the madness. Building a brand most effectively involves creating a consistent brand image that resonates with your audience and maximizes your business.

How do you build your brand the right way? Mood boards and brand boards. Before you get started, it’s important to note that brand boards and mood boards are not the same. Mood boards are made for setting the tone. It’s a board for inspiration. A brand board is a combination of your official assets. It’s what you use to identify your brand.

Here’s an example:

During your planning, there’s a lot of elements to take into consideration, so it is essential to have the right process around brainstorming mood boards before you start officially forming brand boards. But first, let’s discuss why creating a brand board is important.

Why is Building a Mood or Brand Board Important?

• It ties your brand’s personality to its visual components
• You can inspire your team with new ideas for content
• It will navigate the visual story your brand tells through its content
• Use it as a decision making tool for new brand identities or updates
• It ultimately shapes your audience’s perceptions and actions

When you join Cosmopolitan Countdown, you’ll gain free access to our guides and video tutorials so that you don’t let these mood boards overpower your planning. By joining, you will have a guaranteed process toward building the most optimized brand identity with access to lots of tools and helpful content.

Brainstorming with a Mood Board

This is where your mood board comes in. A mood board shapes who you want to be as a brand and how you want your audience to perceive you. It’s where you start manifesting the kind of personality and identity you want your brand to give off. This is a basic montage of different images, colors, and texts that inspire your brand.

Don’t let it overwhelm you. In the brainstorming stage, nothing is set in stone. Take your collages to whatever level you want, but don’t go overboard. After all, these wild collages need to eventually be solidified into final brand boards.

If you’re struggling to be inspired or hone down your ideas, try joining our course to get access to our mood board video tutorials. You’d also have access to our Facebook community, who would be happy to review your mood board for you!

Forming with a Brand Board

This is when you start forming a more solidified brand identity. The key here is to make sure you know your audience and personality. A brand board is going to represent the official assets of your brand, so you want to make sure you’re solid on what your brand stands for first.

The brand board may also often serve as a quick and handy visual reference containing your logo, fonts, colors, photography style, patterns, textures, and more. This makes it the perfect guide for quick content creation. For those just getting started, be sure to check out our brand board guide in the Cosmopolitan Countdown.

The Final Brand as a Style Guide

Finally, your full-on branding style guide. This is usually a long-form .pdf document that goes through each of the elements much more in-depth. If there are any specific questions about branding elements as you’re creating your templates, this style guide is sure to have it.

For more information on getting started with mood and brand boards, please check out the Cosmopolitan Countdown. Remove your branding stress and join our exciting membership that supports entrepreneurs.