Mood boards are a crucial step in our process here at Pixeld, and many people ask us why we create them. Essentially, we use them to ensure we understand our clients.
So, what is a mood board?
A mood board is a collection of images that visually represent the vibe you hope to achieve with your brand. It is designed to convey a feeling of your business through colours and image styles. It should inspire the design assets, marketing, and persona of the brand.
After our Brand Discovery Sessions (our initial meetings), during which we flesh out all the nitty-gritty details, the mood board brings together the whole picture in a logical yet creative form. We create an abstract visualisation of how a customer would feel after interacting with your brand.
But it’s only an internal document to provide a reference point for anyone working on the design project. Your customers would never see your mood board.
Why are mood boards important?
Mood boards are important to our process for several reasons. At Pixeld, mood boarding provides our clients with a new way of thinking about their brand. Here are the key benefits.
Removes the guesswork
Before we started mood boarding, we spent a lot of time creating designs only to receive comments such as “It’s not what I was expecting.” It was a huge time expense for both parties to spend hours and hours going back and forth to try and guess what we were both thinking.
Mood boards provide our clients with a visual representation of how we understand their branding journey. They allow us to gain feedback on our ideas and clarify the vision before we enter the design phase. Mood boarding means we no longer have to factor in hit-and-miss time for our designs and can instead be confident we are on the right track when presenting assets to our clients.
Setting some boundaries
Mood boards have allowed us to continue being creative within the guiding limits set by the client. They are a reference point that is very useful when creating different assets, as we can now effectively and efficiently create designs that adhere to your brand strategy and provide the right vibe to your customers.
Sets the precedent for your brand
A mood board not only provides everyone with clarity, it sets a standard for everyone to achieve. There’s no discrepancy in how your brand should be conveyed, as the mood board highlights the colours, vibe, and feeling that customers should get with every interaction with your brand.
How are mood boards different from the final product?
A common question we get asked is why it doesn’t look exactly like my brand. The simple answer is a mood board is not supposed to look exactly like your marketing assets. A mood board should emulate consumers’ experiences or emotions with your brand but not be an exact copy. Its purpose is to capture the feeling of your brand to help develop the style and tone you want to move forward with. Don’t get too hung up on how specific elements within your mood board are designed. Focus more on the overall feeling of the collection.
Appealing to a customer is always important, but the ultimate goal is to create an emotion through your brand’s imagery. At Pixeld, we provide a comprehensive branding strategy, and the mood board is just a part of developing this strategy. If you are considering branding your new business or rebranding your existing business, we would love to help you achieve your vision.
