Why most mood boards don’t work
The issue with people making their branding moodboard is that usually they just open Pinterest or any other visual google and start to randomly adding pictures with no structure.
And don’t get me wrong I am a big fan of doing things without structure but then what happens is that they spend so much time with this without any palpable results.
Or even worse they use a TEMPLATE to fill with 9 images (not ideal either).
My mood board process
What I use for my mood board process is the following:
I defined what brand am I doing - my own this time, so it will be personal, tied closely to who I am as a person, what my surroundings are, what influenced me - how did I get here, what do I wear (my personal favourite is the influences because it means I can dig deep and enjoy the nostalgic memory trip)
Define what brand am I working on
And I opened FIGJAM because it’s the closest tool to how my brain works (in case you are wondering JIRA is on the other side of this spectrum - i.e. How my brain really DOES NOT work).
And I opened FIGJAM because it’s the closest tool to how my brain works (in case you are wondering JIRA is on the other side of this spectrum - i.e. How my brain really DOES NOT work).
Here I started to collect the images, but not the actual ones like “this is logo inspiration” - I was collecting the actual influences. The cartoons I loved as a kid, every piece of media or toys I could remember being obsessed with (I think the 20s are for getting back to the things that we loved as kids- and Natalie Goldberg has a good idea in here- the obsessions never actually disappear (it’s similar to Bradbury’s list of words - of things to write about) - things we love have a tendency to come back one way or another).
I looked over the images and started to pick recurring things that I liked - similar colours, patterns, - and I created clusters from them - just rearranging them around the Figjam canvas
Based on those I started to come up with words (on sticky notes) that are the common variable - and not only “what is in these three pictures” but “what I LIKE in these three pictures” - in the end I had a big mess of pictures and sticky notes with a lot of words. In the end I was able to tone it down and filter and filter until I found 3 words that defined my brand the most - clearly and covered 90% of things I liked about these. (I finished on these three: - after I wrote them down I realized I basically want to be ponyo ). From there I defined how I want people to feel when interacting with my brand - these I basically copied and cumulated from the feelings I felt when I discovered the blogs and websites of my heroes (most of them do not exist anymore) but the vibes stayed.
Here is my definition: (pic)
And on this basis then I started to pick actual design-y visuals (I didn’t limit myself only for the brand / website design - I looked into packaging, reel covers, illustration, art, photography) - there’s no cap on what can you be inspired by
One note: I did not do this within a day- I was collecting inspiration for a week and then I sat down and just cleaned up the clutter there
