88. How to Create a Moodboard and Vibrant Color Palette for Your Business

Everyone's on Pinterest saving pretty pictures, but saving images and building a brand direction are two very different things. A moodboard is a decision-making tool. It's how you get the vision out of your head and into something you (or your designer) can actually work from.

We cover:

• The difference between images you like and images that are actually right for your brand
• A simple word exercise to do before you open Pinterest 
• How to build and edit your moodboard so it feels like one cohesive world
• How to pull your color palette directly from your moodboard 
• The most common mistakes people make 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Inspired by Design. I'm so excited for today's episode because you know me and you know how much I love color, and I'm also like a mood board queen. I have so many mood boards in my Pinterest. I love creating vision boards at the start of every year. I have vision boards in my journal. I have them sometimes on my lo screen. I'll create them for my Mac log screen. I just love a mood board and a color palette. And I mean, you already know that that is what I do for business owners. So I'm really excited to kind of break it down here today. And even if this is just to like get the ball rolling for you, so you have something that you can utilize to kind of just start bringing these ideas to life. This doesn't have to be like a mood board and color palette that you are set in stone going to use, but more so just to like figure out how to even go about doing that. And it's really fun. It's a lot of fun to do. So I'm very excited to talk about this today. But before we get into it, I wanted to ask because I know something that I talk about a lot is bold and vibrancy and unique and bright and making sure your brand is standing out. And so are you bold enough? Is your brand bold enough to stand out in your industry? And I ask you that because a lot of people are blending in and they're blending in with other people in their industry. They're just blending in to the crowd of noise in every saturated market. And I created a quiz, I believe it's like 10 questions. It's really quick, and it allows you to kind of just answer some questions to identify whether you're muting yourself to blend in or you are standing out, or maybe you fall somewhere in the middle. But I think that if you're at a point in business and you've been like, I don't really know where I stand, like I'm am I blending in? Am I standing out? I don't really know. This is a really good place to start. The link is in the show notes. It's super quick. Take it, let me know what you get. Are you bold enough to stand out or are you blending in? And now let's get into the episode. Let's talk all things mood board and color palettes. So most likely everyone here is probably on Pinterest. Maybe you're not, but everyone on Pinterest is always saving pretty aesthetic pictures. But most people really have no idea how to turn that into an actual brand direction or mood board or just any sort of strategy for their business. And a mood board really isn't just like decoration, but it's a decision-making tool. And it allows you to get clear on specific parts of your brand so that way you can make intentional decisions from that direction. And I'm hoping by the end of this episode, you will know exactly how to build one that actually will guide your brand and not something that just like looks aesthetic and pretty, but actually has strategy and direction behind it. So why this matters before you ever create a graphic on Canva or hire a designer. Now I want to be clear that this is something a designer will guide you through. We have a process where we take clients through a creative direction where we map out color palette and mood board, and we utilize a lot of your vision and your thinking if you have that. If you have nothing and you have no preference, we're happy to take it and run with it. But if you have a vision already, we want to build off of that. And so before you ever even hire a designer or, you know, start randomly trying to design graphics on Canva, I want you to do this. And skipping this step is why so many brands end up feeling really inconsistent or off or just like jump like a jumbled mess. You have no idea what's going on. And this is really, it's really difficult to show up consistently when you don't have that foundation. And like I'm a designer, and even I struggled with this in the very beginning when I started my business because I wasn't clear on who I was trying to serve, what I was trying to do, or my general aesthetic. And so my Instagram feed was a hot mess. And like I'm a designer, that's that does not fly. But it just goes to show that it is difficult to create and to put your message across when you don't have a foundation. And once I did what I do for other people for myself, it got a lot easier. And so I'm hoping that this will help you kind of get that foundation so you can utilize that if you are gonna continue doing it yourself, or so you're prepped when you're ready to hire a designer. So a mood board is how you get your vision out of your head and into something that someone else or you can actually work from. And so I'm sure if you're an entrepreneur or a business owner, there are one trillion gazillion thoughts and ideas and visions in your head. I know for me, I have mood boards and vision boards just like flipping around through my head all the time. And so a mood board is really how you take that out of your head and put it into physical form so someone else can make sense of it, or you can try and make sense of it. And it's also how you stop second-guessing every design decision because a mood board gives you some direction. And if you're working with a designer, it also saves so much time, money, and revision rounds. Because if you have this idea in your head, your designer doesn't know what is happening inside your head. We don't live in your head, so we don't know the thoughts that you're having or the direction that you want to go. But if you're able to build an aesthetic from what's in your head, and not like it doesn't have to be concise and perfect and polished, but just a general idea of what you're thinking. And something that I do with my clients when we first start working together is they fill out an in-depth brand discovery questionnaire and they create a Pinterest board. And I'm not asking you to actually curate a mood board because that can take a lot of time and a lot of effort, and maybe you're not super design friendly and you don't know how to put mood board elements together to make them look aesthetic. What I have you do is divide your mood your Pinterest board into a few different sections. And that is like your like logo inspiration, the vibe, color palette, um, website, elements, a few of those things. And I have a video that like walks you through how to do this. And then what I ask you to do is to just start going through your Pinterest feed, start typing in some things. And some of my clients don't even know what to search on Pinterest. And so I'm happy to tell you and guide you into what specific things you can search to get the ball rolling. And then from there, you start pinning elements, pictures, things that you find that you think accurately represent the vision that's in your head. And from there, I create the mood board and I create the visual representation. So that way you can then say, yes, omge, that's exactly what I had in my head. Or you can say, not quite there yet. There's a few things I want to tweak. Or no, not at all. The direction I need to go back to the drawing board. But it allows us to get very clear on the direction before we ever get into designing. That way I don't design something that is completely not in line with what you had in your head. And so a mood board is not just pretty images that you like, but it's more a visual representation of the feeling that your brand should evoke. And so it's not like I just like this. I think this is pretty. It's more like this is right for my brand, and this feels like it gives across the emotion and feeling that I want my brand to have. And you don't even have to understand why it does. Like, I feel like sometimes when you're making a mood board, it's like, I don't understand why this picture feels like it belongs or represents my brand, but it does. And that's enough to pin it and add it and use it for inspiration because there's a reason why you feel that way, and it probably is rooted in real psychology. And a good mood board does have cohesion. So everything on it starts to feel like it really does belong in the same world. It's not just like a jumbled mess of all these different things that you like that you think could represent your brand. Because again, if it's just a bunch of random things that actually don't go together, you're not doing your brand any good because you're just adding to that confusion. Remember, we're trying to build consistency and cohesion. And so a good mood board does that. It it serves as the direction for your brand, but in a way that actually makes things look clear and makes sense. And the kind of things that go on a mood board are typically some photography direction or style. Um, so like actual photo shots. They don't have to be of you, obviously, but they could be just like photography that you found on Pinterest that you like, the vibe, the style of, they could be like portrait shots, they could be detail shots. Um, there will be textures on your mood board, most likely, um, typography and fonts, colors, and overall mood, movement, and energy. If you're listening and you are a woman-owned coaching, wellness, or lifestyle business, and you're ready for a brand and website that actually helps you stand out in your industry and attract your ideal clients, you're in the right place. At Soulbright Studio, we design colorful, playful, vibrant brands and websites for women who are ready to own their authenticity instead of blending in. Everything we create has strategy and intention behind it. Every color, every element, every word is chosen with your business and your ideal client in mind. Working with us is like having a creative extension of your team. We're your go-to design partner, someone who really gets the heart of your mission and helps you bring it to life. We're here to help you anchor into your vision and amplify your impact. Head to Soulbright Studio.com slash contact. That's S-O-L B-R-I-Tudio.com slash contact. The link is right in the show notes. And fill out the contact form and we'll reach out about scheduling a connection call to see if we're a good fit. Okay, so before you open Pinterest, I want you to do a word exercise. I'm gonna have you write down five adjective adjectives that describe how you want your brand to feel. Not look, but feel. So for some examples, it could be warm, it could be editorial, bold, grounded, luxurious, playful, minimal, earthy, vibrant. There are literally so many descriptive words you could use, but I want you to pick the top five. And you can like jot down a huge list and then look at each word and like think about how it makes you feel, and then circle your top five. And these words start to become sort of a filter for every image that you then save on Pinterest. And if an image doesn't match at least two of your words, it doesn't belong on the board because that's how you separate between an image that you just like and an image that actually embodies the feeling that you're trying to represent. And if you like the picture, go ahead and save it. Just save it to a different board. Don't save it to your mood board for your brand. Now, building your mood board. You can source images from a lot of different places. Pinterest is my favorite. Pinterest is the place for mood boards, vision boards, we all know this. But you can also look at other image places like Unsplash or Kaboom Picks. I love kaboom picks so much because they just have such elevated aesthetic imagery. Like most stock photo sites, you can tell their stock photos. It gives a very like sterile doctor's office, dentist office vibe. But Unsplash, Unsplash is more like Unsplash is where photographers actually submit their work. And so you'll see a lot of like landscapes, a lot of really pretty portrait photos, a lot of pretty pictures of nature and things. And so there's a lot of good stuff in Unsplash. Unsplashes can be a little bit more of that stocky stock photo vibe, but kaboom picks is my all-time favorite. There is just so many aesthetic photos, and they do shoots, like actual photo shoots. So you can like look up um a shoot and you can find a ton of different images all within the same vibe because they're from the same shoot. And so that's a really great place where we get aesthetic stock photos when we're working with a brand that doesn't have brand photography. And most of the time, our clients will get brand photography, and sometimes we can even intertwine some of those stock photos in there because they don't look like stock photos, they look so aesthetic, and when they're chosen correctly, they really fit the brand vibe. So you can look in Pinterest unslash kaboom picks, magazines, packaging, interior design, fashion. There's so many places you can find inspiration. But Pinterest is helpful because it keeps it all in the same same place and you can pin it to a specific board. And I want you to go beyond your industry. I want you to look at interior design, fashion, food. I want you to look at photography of other industries to give you more original direction. If you go on Pinterest and you look up coaching mood board, you're gonna get a lot of the typical coaching brand photos, coaching brand elements, and that's all good. That's all there for a reason, but we want you to find some inspiration outside of your industry, and this goes for every single industry. We just want to find some inspiration, and it's okay to find inspiration from your industry, but also pulling from other directions so we can really start to build this like unique identity. So, how many images? I want you to aim for 15 to 20 to start and then start to edit down to like 9 to 12 that feel the most cohesive. A mood board is typically an even amount of squares across and down, and so it's typically like a 3x3 grid or a 4x4 grid. Most of the time, I would say we do three by three grids. Um, but you can also do a mood board in one of those ways where you kind of make it really designed and just everywhere. But for this exercise, if you're not actually going to turn this into a mood board and you're just looking for direction, find as many images as you please. But 15 to 20 is a really great place to start. And start to look for patterns in what you're saving because what you're naturally drawn to is probably telling you something about your brand and your business and you. And so some tools that you can use for this are Pinterest, you know, pinning Pinterest to a pinning pins to a Pinterest board. Um, you can also you utilize Canva. Canva has some great mood board templates where you can throw your pictures right in there. You can even just save a folder on your desktop. You can also just like take screenshots on your phone, whatever works best. And then you need to really edit. And this is where I think a lot of people may go wrong, is that they keep everything and then they end up like cluttered and confused. And you need to look at your images all together and feel like they and see if they feel like one world or if they feel like a bunch of different moods, because we want them, we want it to be co cohesive and concise. And so start to cut anything that feels off, even if you love it individually, you can still love it individually, but it doesn't have to fit with the whole brand and the whole mood. So the board should have a visual intention that really feels intentional and not super chaotic. And so when you're done with this, ask yourself if these images were a brand, would I immediately understand what it stands for? And your answer will help guide the rest. Now you will then extract color from your mood board. Color isn't just thought of from thin air. Now, experienced designers, like we have experience working with a lot of different color palettes, and color is kind of our specialty. So sometimes I will pull a color from thin air and see how it works with the brand and making sure that it matches like psychologically with the emotion and value and strategy behind the brand. But most colors are actually brought from the mood board them itself because the mood board itself, those pictures represent a feeling or represent a value that you're trying to represent for a reason. And I think this exercise is really great because it shows you how those pictures evoked that feeling in you. And so if you're looking at a picture and you think this photo makes me feel really calm and my brand word is calm, so I'm gonna choose this photo. Or this photo makes me feel really vibrant and alive and creative, and that's what I want my brand to look like. You're seeing in real time how that visual identity is making you feel, and how that in your brand can make others feel. And I feel like that's really powerful because it shows you the work actually working. And so to make your color palette, we're gonna look for colors that repeat naturally across your saved images, and those will start to become your brand colors. A solid brand palette has one to two primary colors, one to two secondary colors, and a few neutrals. And you wanna make sure you have enough contrast in your palette because if you're gonna go really dark and luxurious and bold, and you're gonna use those darker tones, we're gonna need light tones to contrast that for text. And vice versa, if you're going more light and airy and spacious, you're gonna use lighter tones as the background, and those we need those dark tones as contrast on the light backgrounds. And so some tools that can possibly help with this are Cooler's Co. is a really good site for making color palettes. It helps make them so they're like in line and there's not just a bunch of random colors put together, and that's spelled co-o-l-o-r-s dot co. And I can link that in the show notes. And then there's Adobe Color, or you can even use just the eyedropper tool in Canva to pick from your mood board directly. You can use Adobe, but Adobe is pretty difficult to use if you're not an experienced designer or have no experience using Adobe. And then lastly, there is an extension that I utilize on my desktop if I'm ever trying to pull a color from something, or not on my desktop, on my Chrome. Um, and it's called Color Pick Eyedropper. And you can just toggle that on, and then it adds this like little hover of um. It's like an X, and it will allow you to hover over a color, click it, and then get the hex code number so that way you can identify what color that is. And then something that I want you to watch out for is using too many colors, using colors that fight each other, or using trendy colors that won't age well. And I think there's a lot of colors that maybe are trending and they're great colors to use in your brand, but you want to make sure that those colors actually represent what it is you're trying to do. Because if let's say butter yellow is trending and you love butter yellow and you want to incorporate it in your brand, but your brand is really like bold and fiery and feisty, like you're not gonna want a soft butter yellow in your color palette. And so I think like always checking back to your brand words and your brand values and what you stand for is going to help so much. And then I want you to test your palette, put it on a white background and a dark background and see what the vibe is. Does it still work? And I also want to say as well that creating a color palette is not easy and color work itself is not super easy, and it takes a lot of trial and error. So if you build a color palette and it just doesn't look good, like don't be down on yourself. Color palettes are really hard to build, making sure that they're cohesive and that they go together and that the colors aren't fighting and that it just blends well to create a brand. And so when you're done, if you have a color palette that you're liking, ask yourself Does it reflect the feeling of the words that we identified in step one? Does it feel like you and your brand, or does it feel like you're trying to represent what's trending right now? Does it stand out in your industry or does it blend in with everyone else? Can you see it on a website, on Instagram, on a business card? And do you think it feels cohesive in all these places? Would your dream client be drawn to it? And then some common mistakes to avoid when you're working on your mood board and color palette is copying a competitor's color palette. And this can happen like even accidentally, and I think this happens a lot in the wellness space because every wellness business, yoga Pilates, like breathwork, um therapy offices, like there's just so many wellness-based businesses that are all really drawn to like sage green and like a really light blue and beigees. And while that's fine, and there's a reason why those wellness businesses are drawn to those colors because they evoke specific feelings, it's really easy to all of a sudden like rebrand, put your brand out there, and then be like, oh wait, I look exactly like so-and-so, my competitor, and I didn't even mean to do that. And so I would check the industry, like, it's okay to pick colors that are similar in vibe to other industries because there's a reason that green is chosen, there's a reason blue is chosen. However, you want to make sure that there's enough differentiation and you have something in there that makes you pop so you can stand out. And then another mistake is choosing colors that you personally love versus colors that actually serve the brand. And I think it's really easy to be like, oh, I just love pink, so I want my brand to be pink. But if your brand, if your brand's like ideal client and what you're you stand for does not give pink energy, you're not gonna want to use pink no matter how much you love it. And so I think that's an important detail to focus on as well. Another mistake is going too safe because you're afraid to commit. And so using just beijan white is not a palette, like it's an avoiding committing to colors and like creating that consistency and cohesion. And then lastly, changing it every six months because you're bored. And I say this all the time, but consistency and cohesion is so important, and it is strategy. Being consistent is how you build brand recognition. And so if you're changing it every six months because you're bored or you like this new color, or you're just like unsure, that is going to lead to nowhere. And so once you have your mood board and palette, those are just really the foundation of everything else. And everything really builds on that. Your typography that you choose, the photography, the design, even the tone of voice in your copy and your messaging. And so this really isn't just something that you sit down and you rush through, but give it real time and intention and attention and really let it evolve. And it doesn't have to be done in one single sitting, but when it's right and once you're in a flow of picking things and just feeling into it, everything will click and you suddenly will know exactly what your brand is supposed to communicate and the foundation that it lives in. And this is just such a fun exercise to do because it really gets the ball rolling, it gets you so excited, and it really shows you the potential of what your brand could look like if you committed to something and if you really created an identity rooted in the foundation of your brand and the strategy and your ideal client. And I think it's really exciting. And I know for so many of my clients that the creative direction is their favorite part of the process or one of their favorite parts of the process because they finally feel seen in their brand and their visual identity, and they can finally like see it coming to life. Like they're like, I see where this is going, and I'm so excited. And so if you've done this already, or if you're thinking about doing it, and then you get to the point where you have like the idea, but you're ready to put it into action and you don't know how, I am happy to help and would absolutely love it, especially if you're someone who loves a little vibrant, a little vibrancy, a little bit of boldness, brightness, some color. I am your girl. We love working with fun colors and just vibrancy to really help you stand out. And so my homework for you is to open Pinterest right now and start a new board. You can name it like brand mood board or brand direction. And then you can go to my Pinterest account. It's just SoulBright Studio on Pinterest. And I have a ton of brands that I've created that are in there, color palettes I've created that are in there, um, photography direction that I enjoy that I have pinned, um, packaging direction, color palette direction, just so many things that I have found through Pinterest that I have put into boards. So you can take a look, browse through my Pinterest for some inspiration, see how I've done a few things, and then yeah, get excited, get going, and just start pinning, start creating, and start really bringing that vision to life and get it out of your head and really just like into the physical. And when you're done, if you want to share your mood board with me, if you want to share your creative direction that you've come up with, if you want to share your Pinterest board, please do. You can send it to me on Instagram. I'm happy to look at things. I'm happy to get on a call and chat about your brand direction and like what you where you see it going, what you want to do with it. I just I love all things brand design, brand direction, creative direction, mood boards, color palettes. So I would be happy to. But I hope this episode was helpful and got you kind of excited to create a mood board, create a color palette, and just really build a foundation for your brand. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll be in your ears again next week.