Branding Your Business With A Mood Board

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So you have a business… and therefore, you have a brand right? Wrong.

Your business is your foundation, your products and services that you offer. Without your business and business model, you would have nothing to brand – this is why you need to get very clear about both your business and your brand.

Your BRAND is the personality of your business, it is what creates the emotional connection to your targeted audience. This… is the fun part and surprisingly enough – the one that many people forget about. This is what sets you apart from other businesses and even those who may have similar product lines or services as you. What is so cool about this? When you have a solid brand – you no longer have ANY competition! What? Yup – that’s right. Competition is only an issue for your business when you are doing the exact same thing as other businesses, and your brand is what sets this apart and therefore eliminating competition. Most consumers purchase based on emotion and emotional connections and this is where you need to focus when targeting your audience.

So let’s define your brand – in the most fun way possible – A MOOD BOARD.

I did this exercise on Day One of creating my business, and I continue to do it often because I find that as my business naturally shifts in one direction or another as I move forward, my brand must shift as well. I am sure you have all heard of Mood Boards and thought, “Now, how in the hell does someone actually make one of those things?” or if you were more like me, “Who in the hell actually has TIME to make one of those?” A little secret – it doesn’t take much time at all, it is SO much fun, and at the end – you are going to have such a clear vision of what your brand is and who you are in your business as well as motivation to move forward in your newly defined business.

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For this post, I am assuming that you are confident with your business, you know what products you are selling, which services you are offering, and the backbone to what makes your business, your business. I am also assuming that you are a little bit of a dreamer and can envision (even a little bit) of what you want your vision to look like… channel that vision…. let’s go….

AFFORDABLE & UNIQUE LOGO CREATION FOR YOUR BRANDED BUSINESS

create your mood board

Brand words

Your brand words are descriptive words that you are going to choose that when put together convey the essence, emotion, or tone that you want your brand to portray. These are the words you would want not only yourself, but someone else to use to describe your business.

choose 5 words

Using the list below of descriptive words or coming up with some of your own, nail down 5 words that best convey the essence, emotion or tone you want to represent with your brand.

Now that you have your 5 brand words nailed down… it’s time to create your Mood Board.

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AFFORDABLE & UNIQUE LOGO CREATION FOR YOUR BRANDED BUSINESS

mood board

This is the exciting part! The Mood Board is when it all comes together – it is the visual representation of inspiration for your brand through images portraying your brand and concept.

step 1 – pinterest

If you aren’t already on Pinterest, you need to be – and I will tell you more about that in a bunch of other posts, but for now – get over there, sign up – its FREE.

Start a board and call it “(Your Biz Name) Mood Board” and you can even make it a secret board if you don’t want anyone else to see it. To do this, scroll down in the options while creating the board and slide over the toggle that says secret.

Now that we have our Mood Board on Pinterest set up – take a look at the 5 brand words you chose to represent your brand. Search these words and find all of the different pins that come up. Be more specific if you aren’t finding ones that match your business, for example, if your tone word was “cozy” try “cozy home decor” if that made more sense to your business. Pin as much as you can from these searches to your Pinterest board – as long as it relates to one of your brand words – PIN IT!!!

You should end up with at least 50 -70 images.

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Step 2 – Save Your Faves

Taking a look at all of the pins you have on the board – see if you notice any patterns, trends, blends, or anything that is starting to make sense of a brand to you. Take about 2-3 pictures that represent each word the best that you are funneling into your “brand” and save them to a folder on your computer. (Right click, save image, new folder) You should end up with 10 – 15 pictures for each.

Step 3 – Mood Board

Yay! Here comes the part where it all comes together! Head over to either:

PicMonkey – free 7 day trial – click on collage templates from homepage – PicMonkey is an absolutely wonderful software & resource for image creation for a low payment a month ($5.99 – $7.99/mo)

Canva – so great because it is FREE, but when you decide to use more advanced features (your own fonts, transparent backgrounds, etc.) you will find that the Canva For Work – ($12.95/mo or cheaper when you pay annually) will be an absolute worth it option.

And… create your collage! They both have amazing templates, you can’t go wrong.

Notice the colors that are being used in your pictures – if you want to find exactly what they are specifically in HTML color codes (amazing resource right here!) so you can use it in your image creation and fonts to help brand. Upload the image onto that page & hover over the color you like from the image and it will tell you the exact HTML color code to match it! Mind blown!

time to admire your mood board

Clap Clap Mama – I am so proud of you! You made an incredible Mood Board to represent your Business Brand! I hope that this exercise allowed your to get a better grasp on your brand, allowing you to set yourself a part from your past competition!

Here was mine! When I first began my business – and it still drives me when I need to focus.

Fun, Bold, Nautical, Positive Vibes Mood Board

Colorful, Geometric, Minimalist Mood Board

Dark, Cold, Modern, Deep, Rose Gold Mood Board

Here is a great resource to use for further branding of your business through logo creation:

Fiverr.com – Such a great resource of freelancers to create logos, blog posts, social media ideas, and so much more – extremely affordable and they get back to you SO fast! This is my favorite!

Use this Mood Board to guide your decisions or send it to others when explaining your business!

I want to see it! Come join our Facebook Community and post it up to share or send me an email at [email protected] , I would LOVE to see it!!!

About

I am all about helping you balance mom life, maker life, and building an online business! I know how tough it can be and I scoured everything I could find to bring you the absolute best! So, grab your coffee or glass of wine and let’s become BFFs!