Branding Building Blocks: Create a Compelling Brand Moodboard

1. Introduction: Know the feeling when someone says, I'm just not in the mood. We are constantly affected by everything around us. Sometimes certain things can make us feel relaxed. Others can make us feel irritated, and other things can evoke feelings of joy. While others can make us feel really hungry, for example. So the same way certain things can affect our moods is the same way brands can be perceived. Brands can be so much like people, which is why so much of emotions and psychology play a big role in branding. Hi. I'm Khazza, but everybody calls me Dija. I'm a freelance graphic designer based in Cairo Egypt, and a top teacher here on Skillshare. I've worked for three years in a leading and award winning brand agency. And ever since I took off solo, I've worked with brands like Coca cola and clients from various industries like F and B, linans, skincare, and tail. In this class, we are going to be learning how to create a brand Mo board. This is one of the very first steps in any branding project, and in my opinion, it is a vital skill that sets the entire tone for the rest of the project. I'll be walking you through what kind of questions to ask for clients to gather raw information and data, setting up an air tight brief, where to look for references, how to build and fine tune and moodboard. And finally, how to present it like a confident and professional designer. This class is perfect for any level of designers, whether you're just starting or you're a seasoned designer looking to elevate or tweak your process. This is a straightforward, simple, but powerful class that will not just teach you how to create a moodboard, but overall, it will leave you feeling more confident, knowing how to communicate better and how to make thoughtful decisions as a designer. I'm so glad you're here. So whenever you're ready, let's jump right in. 2. Why Moodboards Are Important: Okay. So first things first, what is a brand move board? Is it just me going on Pinterest, layering a bunch of images together and color palettes? Well, yes and no. A brand woodboard is a succinct collection of visual assets that will represent a brand's visual identity. It's like having a blueprint before constructing a building, a roadmap before you set off to a destination, and it's one of my non negotiables before starting any brand project. Is it absolutely necessary and important? Yes. And here's why. The first reason is clarity. It's your job as a designer to be able to take a brief and data and visualize it into a clear visual direction. A client may or may not have a clear vision for their brand. So it's up to you as a designer to be able to refine this information and create a clear visual direction for them to envision their brand on. So you're basically taking the driver's seat of this journey from this very first step. The second thing is that a brand mode board acts as your guide book. The beginning of any branding project can honestly feel a little bit intimidating and overwhelming, especially at first. And this happens to me all the time. Nobody wants to stare all day on a blank illustrator board, not knowing where to begin. This is where you start. A brand moodboard acts as your guide throughout the whole design process. If you're ever stuck at a certain point, refer back to your moodboard. If you're unsure about your color combinations, refer back to your moodboard. Unsure how to defend your design decisions, refer back to your moodboard, which brings me to my third point. It's a communication and time saver. A Bram moodboard is a decision that you align on with your client from the beginning. So this completely eliminates any unwanted surprises, misalignments, or endless decisions. Both parties are aligned from the head start. And the last point is consistency and coherence. The mood board ensures you are consistent with your design decisions all throughout. Sometimes when we're designing, we can get carried away with unnecessary design elements and decorations and embellishments that aren't really relevant to the brand. So a brand moodboard will help you to stay and check and stay on brand and all the elements together look cohesive and under one family. Essentially, your final brand presentation should look like it was directly inspired by your moodboard. And think about it. This is the part where you invite the client to be a part of your process. You help to give them ownership into their brand by inviting them into your moodboard process, ask them what they like, what they don't like, and this is the part where they get to share their input with you, and you get to tweak a lot of things before diving into the design direction. At the end of the day, you want to light your clients with your design options, but you also want to eliminate any unwelcome surprises. So the balance here is key. So whenever you're ready, let's jump into this class to see how we can create this mothboard, and I'm confident by the end of it, you'll be able to incorporate this into your own design process. M 3. Questionnaire: To get started right away, I've created a fictional brief and a brand for this entire class, and it's going to be called Sal, which is a new Beach club that's going to open in Vali, Indonesia. This is the brand that we'll be working on today together to see how we'll create the whole new boat process from the very start. And at the very end, I'm going to assign you a new brand and a new brief for your class project. And the first place where I direct clients to words is my brand questionnaire form. I like to use type form to gather questions and data for my clients. I just find it simple and engaging enough. This is what I use to build a brand proposal, a brief, and a brand strategy. So I just want to briefly walk you through the questions, I typically ask my clients in this questionnaire form. And it's usually just me asking them their name, get to know their name, and introducing myself a little bit of a purpose behind this brand questionnaire, and their role in their business, the name of their brand, the size of their business, what products and services they offer, describing their brand in one sentence. If their brand has a unique origin story of why they started it, if they were inspired by something, I want to get down to the roots and the emotion behind this brand. What their long term goals are. Their target audience with specific questions about age bracket, income, location, so on and so forth. I'd like them to describe their ideal customer in their own words and the platform that they're going to use to create touchpoints and how their customers will contact them and engage with their brand. Their indirect and their direct competitors, what sets them apart? Similar brands that inspire them and adjectives they would use to describe their brand as if it was a real person and their personality. How they want their brand to make people feel. So I really like hammer on the emotional part of the brand here. If they have a preferred color scheme or something they want me to stay away from, I usually like to ask that from the beginning. And then at a later stage, I will evaluate myself if that's a correct decision or not, but usually I like to take their input on this from the get go. And if they saw something online that inspired them, this could be like a Pinterest moodboard or something they say online from an article or a website. I just like to get a look and feel of the client's taste and, you know, what visually they gravitate to. When they're hoping to launch, just to get a rough idea of a timeline and the scope of the project, how long it will take, what deliverables they need, and they can just pick here what they want from my services, and they have a little description next to it. And their budget, And if they have any more questions before our call together, and then just like their contact information. So this is just usually a very quick run through of what I use for my brand questionnaire questions, and it helps me gather a lot of data before we even hop onto a call just so I can have a clear understanding of the client's mind and where they want their brand to be. Okay, so I'm just going to jump here to the responses page where I played both the client and the designer for the sake of this class. So for their names, they're just going to be John and Ann Smith, or are a couple who are the founders of this Bach club called Sal. It's a sole on business, and it's gonna be a beach club in Bali, like I mentioned. And here they're just describing the look and feel of the brand, describing it in one sentence. They're They want to create a place that has and offers a unique experience to people who vacation there, and they're really big on hospitality, culinary experiences, the island life, community, and culture. They traveled the world and they're here explaining the emotional side and the inspiration behind why they created this place. They want to stand out within the array of beach clubs in Bali and to stand out from the saturation in the market. And here they're describing the target audience, all of which I'm going to include in the brief, which you're going to see shortly. And here they're describing their ideal customer. And usually, when clients answer these questions, it's not like perfectly broken down and well articulated. So it's your job at a later stage to be able to basically break it down and clear bullet points and articulate exactly what they're trying to tell you. And then here they're just listing the platforms that they want to use. So they're going to have Instagram page, Facebook page website where people will eventually enter bookings on it. And here they listed beach clubs in Bali that they think they're going to be competitive to. And here they're describing how they want to be set apart from their competition. So they want to have a fusion of their experience in Spain, which is originally why they started the speech club from their trip in Spain, mixed in with a rich Balinese culture and offer a modern blend of both. So this is really going to help me when I'm trying to find certain references that kind of encapsulates both cultures together. And here are similar brands that inspire them from all over the world, and this is something I can check out in my research. And there are five adjectives that describe their brands personality are luscious, breezy, rich, flavorful, and inviting. So this is a key question to ask because these keywords are going to help you understand the direction of the images and the references that you want to pull out. So they have to really demonstrate these adjectives right here. And then how do you want people to make your brand feel? They want people to walk in and feel immersed in a different world, a world filled with rich colors, textures, sound, tastes. And when they walk away at the end of the day, they should feel satisfied in every sense. So it's a very sensorial experience to go to this place, and you're kind of experiencing all five senses at the same time when you're there. This is something cool that you can include in your moodboard. You can include textures and visual colors and things that imitates sound, and so on so forth. They're open to exploring any color theme. They just want to stay away from the typical coastal white and blue vibe, which is important to take into consideration if a client has like a certain request. It's important to take their needs into consideration because it's their brand at the end of the day, and you need to stay in a certain lane while offering also your unique perspective. And that's it. They just offered me, like, hypothetically, a link to a visual reference that they liked, and they included a date of launch and the services that they need and their budget and so forth. So this is just a typical brand questionnaire Q&A that I usually ask before. And the next step would usually be hopping onto a discovery call with a client just to get to know them more and see if both them and I are a good fit together. If that's all good to go, then the next step would be jumping into the brief that I create from this Q&A form. And that's pretty much it. So in the next lesson, I'm going to quickly jump into the brief and strategy part, which I've already prepared. I'd love to walk you through it, which will then take us and lead us into the visual hunt for the references for our new board. 4. Brief & Strategy: So after taking all the answers and the data from the questionnaire and the raw information. I start to create an airtight brief and strategy for our clients. And this just doesn't help them like envision a clear direction. It also helps me when I started going on Pinterest or various websites that I'm going to show you. It helps me have a clear direction of what keywords I'm going to put in. What exactly am I looking for? What color palettes do I have in mind? I'm not just lost on the realm of the Internet. So this is like a dual benefit for both parties, which I think is very important, and this is why I wanted to walk you through it as well. The brief is usually a presentation I put together using keynote, but many others just use Illustrator, and that's also fine. Here I have the opening slide, which includes the brand name and a subtitle of what type of document this is, which in this case, it's brief and discovery, and the date of submission down below. I then have slide sections like this one that introduces each section starting with the background, which is just general information about the brand, it's offerings, services and products, all of which is provided in the questionnaire answers, but I make sure that it's well articulated. And the primary objective of this project is to stand out from the competition, have a distinctive branding with a personality that keeps people wanting to return to this place, and to also create a sense of community that unites people who love food, music, and the island all under one roof. The third section is competitive analysis, which involves a brief overview on the competition provided in the questionnaire. Here, I like to analyze the competition's logos, their interior, if they have distinctive branding, any patterns between them, their photography style, and so on, so forth. The objective of this section is not only to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the competition, but to also find the edge and positioning of our brand, where we can fill obvious gaps, or areas of opportunity, and this will really help us know how to move forward. Likewise, we also have a section of aspiring brands, which may not necessarily be competition, but they're usually brands with elements or certain things that the client likes about these brands, so it's important to include them even for yourself to know what kind of vibe and direction you want to steer towards. Then we have the brand story, which is a storytelling narrative about the brand's purpose, mission, objective, origin story, and its products and services. It's a piece of writing I always like to go back to or refer to when I'm describing the brand or when I'm trying to find the references that reflect this piece of writing. Next section is brand pillars, which are basically three key pieces that act like the backbone of the brand. In this case, they are unmatched hospitality, the Island life, and culinary experience. So these are the three main key points I want to try to emulate in my brand moodboard, and this will basically be the building blocks of the brand. Next up is target audience. In the questionnaire, I've already been provided with the age bracket, gender, geographic location, and some basic information about who this place is targeting. But to go to the extra mile, I think it's important even for you as a designer to really be able to visualize the people who are going to be walking into this place, or if this brand was a product, then the type of people who will be using it, which leads us to consumer profiles. Consumer profiles allow you to paint a picture of a guests lifestyle, their occupation, who they are, and what they like to do. This really enables you as a designer to create a brand truly tailored for the people. It also allows your client to understand their customer even better. So I have here three general consumer profiles. The first one is a couple from Australia, who are called Ala and Oliver and their content creators, and I try to imagine their life and why would they even come to this place? Next are a group of men from the Netherlands called Maxine Luke and Tavian, who are co founders of a tech start up, and they travel around a lot, and again, a bit about their background and why they're here. And lastly, we have Gabriel from the US, who was an ex investment banker and took up a full time yoga teacher training in Bali. So I try to include different group types like a couple, a group of friends, and a solo traveler to see how they can all fit in the same space and how they would each interact differently with this brand. Then we have our tonality, which is basically the five adjectives I asked the client to describe their brand as luscious, breezy, rich, flavorful and inviting. So now that I have my competitive analysis, my areas of opportunity, my brand story, my brand pillars, my consumer profile, and my keywords, you should feel a bit more confident and equipped now to start heading on to your strategic visual search. 5. The Visual Hunt: So now that the technical stuff is done and well out of the way, we can finally jump into the fun part, which is the visual hunt. Now, bear in mind, this usually takes me about four to five days in a real world project, just because I like to take a lot of time. So bear in mind that this part is put up for the purpose of this class, but I urge you in your own time to take as much time as possible, and don't rush this process because it does take time, it doesn't happen over a day. And just give yourself room to build a really succinct and rich move board. All right. When I'm typically sourcing images for my brand moodboard, I'm looking at five different categories. Number one is typography, look and feel. Number two is photography. Number three is lifestyle, look and feel. Number four, our textures, illustrations, patterns, and graphic elements. And number five is a tentative color palette. So I'll get into these one by one in more detail as I'm walking you through the process. But this is generally my guideline and my five points that are a must in every new board because I feel like it encapsulates the entirety of a brand, and it really hits all the different points I want to be making when I'm showing this to a client. And the last one, what I mean by a tentative color palette is that usually when you're designing or in a design process, you might want to tweak colors a little bit, so I don't want to really box myself in a specific color palette, but you'll see along the process that I like to present a specific color palette to a client, not a moodboard that just has an array or a rainbow of colors, because then it doesn't really have that personality and that dominance of character when I'm presenting it. It's important to note that if you're working on, for example, a fashion moodboard, Try not to source fashion brand references. Though it might seem intuitive to do so, it actually sets you up to be stuck in a box or fall into the trap of unintentionally imitating the reference. So usually, I would put references that are irrelevant to the business, but close in visual essence. You will see what I mean when I move forward in the class. So now that I have my keywords, my data, my directions, and my five categories at hand, I'm going to start on the visual head hunt. Okay, so the main resources I usually go to, and I'm starting to collect visual references are Pinterest, B hands, Unsplash, dribble, design spiration. It's nice that and Instagram. So the first place I'm going to head onto is Pintras, just to get like a general look and feel for what I'm trying to look for, and I start to put a bunch of keywords down directly from our brief and strategy, and I start to just get a general look and feel and start generating an algorithm that will work for my brand. So the first thing I'm going to search for is Spanish architecture. Hacienda style. Because the Beach club is going to infuse an Indonesian Spanish architecture look and feel. And I really want to get those rich, leafy, luscious colors and vibe into our brand and the interior. So I'm going to start from here to start really imagining and creating the space for myself. And then I'm going to start to go deeper into the details of typography, textures, materials, and graphic elements. So I usually like to start from the big picture and start to zoom in as I go. So something I'm already noticing as a pattern, are these arches in the specific kind of architecture and interior, all throughout the references I'm pulling out. So this is something I would love to include in the interior of the space, and you can also use this as some sort of groundwork or foundation to your brand identity, something that you're building in your mind. And another thing are these leafy palm trees that are inc mixed with these arched doorways. And as I'm going through these references, I'm starting to see a repeated rough color palette that I want to infuse, which are these warm hues of My gold and peach and brick. So these are all certain elements that you're going to see and patterns that you want to take note of because this will add to the authenticity of the brand. Okay. And then next, I'm going to start to research in Jenesian architecture. Okay, so, again, I'm noticing the same hues and color palette between both, so they can work really well together. And I'm also noticing, like, a pattern with, like, checkered floors, so that can also work really well. And I'm also noticing the usage of textures like bamboo and wood and these natural materials used in really modern ways infused into the architecture and really soft lines and curves like that. So I think that could also really work well with the interior of the place just to offer something a bit more modern and different while still preserving the authenticity of the brand. Something else I noticed is that umbrellas are really part of the Valley Beach culture and they offer really rich and colorful and playful side to the brand. I think we can also include that, whether part of the interior or part of the branding, Okay, so I'll basically just spend a little bit more time in this interior realm and category of the process just to feel like I got a good feeling of the space, because it's important for you also to imagine the space to be able to design a brand for it, especially when it's environmental branding like this project, for example. So I'm going to spend a little bit more time here, and then I'm going to dive deeper later on into more branding elements, typography, and graphic elements. Okay, and now to dive deeper into the branding elements, I'm going to take an example of a brand or a category of brands that I feel will reflect our own brand. So instead of researching Beach club branding, because that's not really going to get me anywhere, I'm going to instead research boutique hotel branding. Because I want something that looks similar to where I want to take the brand, but it's not a direct competitor, and it's not really in the same category of Bach clubs, but it's in the same category of hospitality. So I can see a visual of where to take the brand, and I'll just take it from there. And I'll also start researching restaurant branding because this brand is really hammering on the culinary experience. So I want to try to bring references that really emulate that, even though it's not a restaurant brand, it's bigger than that. But you can find certain elements or details in restaurant branding that will bring something special to this brand. So I like to also delve into that category as well. And as you're going through these branding projects, you're already going to start seeing and noticing different kind of word marks and logos. And you're looking for something that matches the keywords, and matches the essence of the brand. So something that has a very bold character, but that's still inviting. And you try to imagine your picture how it would look like on the word Sal. And here I'm just trying to see and collect different types of word marks that I feel has certain character that would fit the brand. And then during the filtering process, I'll see which one really suits the brand the best. And you don't have to stay here just on Pinterest. I'm also using websites like it's nice that to check out different types of typography. Maybe it's on a poster, for example. It doesn't have to be directly from a branding project. Maybe you can find it on dribble, for example, in the typography section. So I just spend a lot of time trying to see different types of typography, what's trending, what's not? It doesn't have to be from a relevant branding project that's relevant to the brand, but it can just be a certain reference that you see that will reflect the right keywords you have in your brief. Okay, so next up, I want to start grabbing photography references. Remember the consumer profiles of our brief. I want to start capturing photography of the type of people who will be there. I want to capture photography styles of the food and the ambience and the lifestyle. They can be close ups of certain details in the place. They can be photographs of people, they can be photographs of food. You need certain photographs to create the mood of the place and really help the client imagine their brand. So, for instance, I'm just going to write photography Bach photography campaign. Because they can be campaign, certain magazines did or certain fashion brands did on the beach, and you want to start grabbing our directed photos, for example. So like this one, the close up of the umbrellas, something that captures the mood of the brand. And another thing is you can start capturing different styles and moods of people. So for example, This is a very joyful kind of photography style. It's very warm, it's very inviting. And it's a different mood than, for example, this photography style. So this is a very art directed and artistic kind of photography style of a different kind of brand. So you just have to decide what kind of direction you want to go with. If you're creating two different kinds of moodboards, then one moodboard can contain this type of photography where people are smiling and they're inviting, and they're very natural element. And another type of moodboard can include this type of photography where it's a little bit more directed and has, like, certain intention behind it. It's not very natural. It's very staged, not in a bad way, but just a different kind of way. So another thing is that I'm trying to include a variety of different photography styles. For example, I'm going to have a section or close up of this palm tree against this wall, and then another type of photography styles that I'm going to have like people included. And another type of photography style can include a close up of a certain element that's happening at the beach club like Bac gain, for example. So you want to try to include a diverse range of photography styles and not just all people or all interior or all close up details. So this really gives a cohesive look and feel of the space. All right, so another thing is I want to start grabbing close ups of certain textures and materials. So in my search of architecture of Spanish and Indonesian architecture, I saw a lot of bamboo and natural earthy material. So I want to bring that into our mood board as well, because that really sets the tone for what kind of materials are going to be there, and it really gives a tactile feel to the place. So something I noticed is that there was a lot of bamboo material, not just for this brand, but across most brands in the competition. So I think it's important to include that as well. So you really want to try to pick nicely curated materials. So the mood board doesn't look too messy and too cluttered. Make sure that when you come to filter during the next lesson, you're really picking and choosing clean and well cured well photographed references, just so the moodboard can be easy to look at because you are including a variety of different categories. So you want to pick certain images that are just nicely photographed, whether that's on Pinterest or something like unsplash where you have high quality images, for example. And when you're on a search engine website like these ones, it really is about word play. There's no correct keywords to put into your search engine. You just have to keep playing around with things. If, for example, certain keywords are not getting me the references I want. You can just tweak the words a little bit because these images are really generated according to the words you put. So if certain words aren't working, just try replacing them with something that's a little bit more detailed or broad and see what ends up working for you. Whenever I'm pulling out these images or references, whether they're from Internet or something lying around at home. I'm already creating in my mind this cluster of images in my head for the mow board, and I can already start to imagine where it's going to be going and what direction I'm going to be taking. Keep in mind that you're also actively looking for images and you're actively building it in your mind before you start building it on your illustrator board. Then there comes a point where I feel that I have enough material and I feel like I have enough material to build a moodboard on it. I'll stop the visual head hunt, and I'll start beginning to build my moodboard. If at any point, I feel stuck or I feel something is missing or not quite right. You can always jump right back in for one final head, but I feel like you will be able to judge on your own when you have enough material to stop and start on the building part. I usually have a brand folder like this one where I categorize subfolders to keep everything organized. For the brand folder, I have a folder for images, direction one and direction two. I just have images here in the respective folders, which then I'll pull out onto Illustrator. Stick around for the next lesson where I'll start to really filter all of these images and references and really narrow it down to have a clear way forward. 6. The Filtering Process: So you want to go ahead and open Illustrator. And what I have in front of me here is an artboard size of 1920 by 1080 pixels, which is the standard presentation size, and this is the size I usually use for most of my presentations. And this is what we're going to be using for the moodboard. I don't usually use the entire space for my mood board. I use nine squares that I'm going to put on this side of the artboard, and then on the right side, I'm going to have some description briefly describing the mood board so that when I send it off to a client and they can sleep on it, they have something to read here to remind them of what I walk them through instead of just a bunch of images that they don't remember anything about. So you can do it my way, or if you prefer a different type of format, that's fine as well. There's no right and wrong. Please feel free and to go ahead and use whatever you want to use. So I'm just going to put here my first square of 300 by 300 pixels, and I'm going to create nine of them. All right, so this is the general layout. So I have my nine squares here, which I'm going to put my filtered references on and mask them. Remember when I said in the beginning that I'm going to have a tentative color palette in my moodboard. So these rectangles here are going to be colors that are color picked from the references directly, just to give the client a general look and feel of what the color palette might be. However, I will write a disclaimer at the bottom here that the colors the shades themselves, they might change along the design process, so not to take this literally. But it's nice to show the client a general look and feel instead of having 25 different shades of colors here and you don't really know what kind of mood the brand is trying to evoke. I like to have them here next to my moodboard. Then on the right hand side here, I have headlines for descriptions. Here I'm going to write a very brief moodboard description, describing its character and the ambience that it gives. Then here I'm going to have a little small section describing the imagery, the photography style, the lifestyle that I want to include in the brand. Then here I'm going to have a brief description of the typography and small stylistic details of what the logo or the wood mark might contain, as well as the messaging that's going to be used in the brand. And then I'm going to be talking a little bit about textures, if there are any, and then a little bit about the tentative color palette and how it serves the brand's purpose. So it's nice to include very many descriptions here. I'm not talking about slides and slides of text. I'm talking about literally two, three lines summarizing exactly what you have in your moodboard. When you come to present your mood board to a client, you will go into detail of each and every reference and what it means and why it's there and how they all fit together to make up the brand. But then, as I said before, usually, clients like to sleep on things, so I would be sending this off to them. So it's nice to have a little description here as a brief reminder of what I would have presented before. All right, so that's the general layout. I'm going to be showing you here two different moodboards for this brand. I usually present around two to three directions maximum of moodboards, but for the sake of this class, I'm going to show you two different ones just so you can see how we can have two different directions of moodboards, but they still fall under the same brand, and they still follow the same brief. Okay, so I'm just going to head out onto my folder of references and images, and I'm going to pull out all the images from the folder of direction one and put them all out on here. Let me just pause here for a quick second. I know this can look super overwhelming and you don't know where to begin and you have so many different kinds of references. But the way to get started is to go back to your five categories of typography, photography, lifestyle, colors, and textures. And I will begin to be categorizing and grouping these images to either sides under these categories. At let I have things a little bit organized, and then I'll go in and filter each category on its own. All right. So I just spent some time decluttering and sort of grouping all the references into these categories. So here I have a category of interior, and already, I'm sort of sensing like a pattern of a color theme here. So we have like the warm yellows, the woods, the terra cotta, the greens, from the palm trees. We have the arches, we have a pattern of tiles or stripes, some sort of visual element here, not solid colors. So I kind of like what's going on here. And for the next category, we have people photography. So I kind of group these in a way where people are sort of in their natural elements, but still styled in some way. So this photography style will go really well with this moodboard because it is natural. People are enjoying their time, but at the same time, it aligns with the brand's stylistic and curated approach. Next, we have the culinary category, which is food photography. This brand really hammers on a culinary experience, offering really unique dishes to their guests. I really want to highlight that through this photography. We have here two different photography styles. We have the top photography of the plates, and we have the plate like an angle. Amongst like a table scape scene where you kind of see a little bit of the table around. So I'm still going to decide as I'm building the mood board, which one I want to go for. But this is generally the type of photography I want to showcase. I want to show that it's serious about the food that it offers its guests and that they have a rich culinary background. Another thing is, I noticed that all the references I kind of pulled out have this, like, very light and airy feel to it. So it's not dark, it's not cluttered, it's very light, it's very beachy, and that's important to note that you want to group or find references especially in a specific category that kind of all have the same look and feel. Okay, next s, we have patterns, illustrations, and graphic elements. This is not just limited to solid graphic elements like the one here up top. You can find these in anything really, fabric, clothing, illustrations, plates, tiles. So I really like the richness that this category brings to the table. That really hammers on the bold and luscious and rich element of the brief. And I think it really goes well with the Spanish culture as well that the founders want to infuse in the space. I can suggest that we can have these sort of elements in the cutlery and tablewar or we can have them illustrated on napkins or the uniform or outfits that the staff wear. These are all really great insights that you can pull into your brand. All right. And next we have the lifestyle category. So the lifestyle category is basically an aesthetic approach where I kind of zoom in on certain details, whether it's part of a towel or a close up of an umbrella or a close up of a cocktail or a close up of the detail of textures on the walls and interior. They're basically just directed images zoomed in close ups of moments that will happen during the day. And when put together with the other categories, I think that it will really make the mood board come together. Then we have the typography section of the moodboard. I leaned a little bit towards the word mark direction just because I feel like Sal sounds like a name. It sounds like someone's name and it's short and I feel like it will really go well with a word mark rather than with an icon. Maybe along the way when I'm designing the brand identity, I can include an icon separate from the word mark, maybe. But for the sake of this moodboard, I think I want to be decisive about the direction I want to go for, and I'm going to stick with a word mark. So if you'll notice that there are some similarities between the references that I pulled out here and a little bit of differences as well. So, for example, you have the noble reference and the GAP reference because they're short names. I like how they kept it really simple throughout the whole word mark, but then you have one letter that kind of has a lot of character infused in it. And I think that will go really well with something like the Speech club. Because this beach club caters to so many different people, so many different walks of life. So I think it needs to be simple and receptive to most of its audiences, but it needs to also have a twist and a certain dominance of character. So this is where the wild card letter comes in. But then you have other directions here, like these really bold and fun and filled with character word marks, whether it's all condensed like this one or really chunky and curvy and inviting like that one Or you have something like the capri where it is inviting and it's modern and it's fun, but it also has this elevated element to it with the cursive elements and the slantedness of it. Then you have something like Ashley Blitz and Sadis they are reflective of real names. I thought that that also goes really well with Sal. We can play on the idea that it's someone's name. And it can feel like some sort of signature with that handwritten inky but elevated feel. So these are all basically just examples of how we can move forward with the word mark, but I am going to have to filter these out and figure out which one is the best for this moodboard. And maybe I can take one aside for my other moodboard if it fits well with the other direction. These are my categories all grouped and decluttered. At this point, I like to basically just zoom out and see if I'm missing anything, see if I need any more references. You can totally go back out there and grab a few or a couple more references if you feel like something is a little bit missing, or you haven't really nailed it yet, or you feel like you need to spend a little bit more time on it. I do this all the time. It's just important at some point to stop and group them together to see what you have in this format, and then revisit, if need be. The next part is we only have nine squares to fill up because as much as I love all of these references, if you present a client with something like this, you're going to look like you're lost and they're going to be lost and everyone is just going to be lost and no decisions will be taken. The next part is going to be a little bit challenging where I'm going to need to figure out how I'm going to filter all of these references if I didn't even add more yet. To these nine squares. And I need to include at least one from each category, so everything just kind of feels very holistic and I'm hammering all different points when I'm presenting it to a client. And they all really need to work together. They need to work together conceptually, and they need to work together visually. I'm going to spend a little bit of time again, looking at each category individually. I'm going to start to delete and filter images where I feel like maybe it looks a bit too cluttered, maybe it's not really hammering on what I'm trying to convey. In general, maybe this is the part where you can go back and read the brand story, you can go back and read the strategy in the brief, just to refresh your mind. This is the point where you need to start making some decisions. You need to be able to have this conviction and say, Okay, this is what I feel goes for the brand because of so and so and so. It can seem like it's a personal choice, but it really isn't. You need to be able to filter and pick what will serve the brand the best. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to start filtering these images out from each category. I'm going to start to bring them to the sodboard and see how they work well together, and then we're going to shfle things around. And I'm going to show you how we can even manipulate some images if the colors aren't really right, but the picture is right. So let's get started on that. 7. Moodboard 01 : Okay, so far, I have deleted a few images. I still have a lot more to go. But this is the filtered narrowed down version just by looking at the different photography styles and seeing what will match each of these categories. And now I'm going to start trying to put them together in this 99 square format. I'm going to try to layer them together by masking them. So maybe let's start with this one. I'm going to send it to the back shift whole shift and select the square, and then command seven. And that's just going to mask it for you. And then I just like to play around with how I want to crop these. So I think for this particular reference, I want the yellow and the green to be more dominant as opposed to all the other stuff like the table. So I'm just going to crop it. O Okay, so I would say this is like my first draft, my first go at it. And so far so good. I like the combination of colors. I think there's a general vibe that I like that suits the place and the way I imagine it for the brand. But I think it's just missing some richness. I still want to try to find a way to get these plates in and some more patterns, maybe, some more architecture because I think that's important for the police. So I'm going to try to make another copy of this because I like the way it is now, and I'll see if I can switch around things here and there. There. I like the way both drafts look at the moment. They're obviously very, very similar, just minor differences and visual decisions I just need to make. I think the next step for me would be to start manipulating some of the colors of these references because, for example, here, the most obvious one is the word. It's in black and white. There's nothing wrong with that. I just think that when you manipulate the colors of certain references that you really like, It really pulls together the whole mood board together and it makes everything look very cohesive. It doesn't stand out in a weird way. I like to take references that I particularly like, and I take it onto photoshop and I start manipulating its colors. You can also do this with transparency on Illustrator, but I think it's a little bit limiting, so I like to use photoshop for that purpose. I'm going to try to infuse those green and lemony colors into this word mark so it matches the rest of the references. Another thing I'm at play around with are these plates. I think this green is a little bit too pungent for this moodboard. And as much as I love the other colors, I think I'm going to keep it cohesive with the rest of the moodboard and see what it looks like. So I'm going to hop on and do that on photoshop, and then I'll be able to decide which draft I want to take with me into the presentation, and I'll have a much better visual sense of it. All right. These are what the two drafts look like. Mostly similar, just minor tweaks here and there and differences using photoshop. For the plates, I just recolored some of the plates to make it match the whole theme of green, yellow, orange, and all these warm colors and just to match the overall aesthetic. I do think that it looks a little bit and has more character in it, and that can really serve the brand later on in the design process. I also enhanced the colors of this couch over here with the arching back behind it just because it looked a little bit pale. And I also tweak the background color of this reference here to have like a sort of muted lemon yellow just to kind of bounce off the rest of the colors. And a massive difference was made when I recolred the word mark here. I just feel like everything works really well together now instead of having that black and white. Image stand out in your face. So I think I really like both moodboards. I think this gives off a more elevated vibe with the cocktail and it's just it's more pleasing to the eye. I feel like this one just has a little bit more character with the addition of the plates here. I think it's just up to me to decide whether I want to particularly have this moodboard, have that extra push of character, or do I want to stay more on the sunny, warm, elevated side of the brand and push the character and the richness in my second direction of moodboards. I think I'm just going to put this on pause here. I'll get a start on my second mood board now just to show you what a completely different second direction can look like. Then I'll compare the two together. I'll put them together because essentially you're going to be presenting these two things to a client. So they both need to stay on brand and serve the same purpose, but they're allowed to be different and have different elements that are more prominent than the other in each direction. So I'm just going to put this aside for now and start on the second mood board, and then I'll decide which one to keep from these ones. Oh. 8. Moodboard 02: Oh. A. Okay. And we're back. So as you can see, the mood board for the second direction is quite different in terms of colors and it has that punch of boldness from the Checkered black. But they still both of them look like they're talking about the same brand. And essentially, this is the whole point of this exercise is to be able to extract inspiration references, and imagery and to be able to filter them to find similar patterns here and there, but still fall under the guides and the guidelines of a brief and a strategy. So for this mood board, I was essentially inspired by this reference over here. The arched architecture similar to the first direction, but also those warm pink, and terra cotta hues. And something that really struck out to me was those checkered old tiles and stairs that I saw on so many references, and I wanted to really hammer on that because it is very attention grabbing, and it strikes me as a statement. So I did want to include that in this moodboard as opposed to the other one. And then I really hammered on the pink color to give me that warmth of day in this moodboard instead of the yellow in this moodboard. And it just strikes me as young and modern and rich. And it gives me almost this feeling of a magical place where I'm going to go and spend my day, listen to music, eat delicious food, meet people, and it's this whole sensory experience that I'm bringing in. So I feel like that color really transports me to that world. And then the usage of brown here, I was inspired by the natural materials found in Balinese architecture, Balinese textures, the bamboo, the wood, and brown as a color in brand psychology is very warm and inviting. And it feels very earthy while still striking a balance to being modern and rich and exciting. And then I also wanted to include these patterns I found on fabric and clothes. And these are particularly prominent in prints and textures you'll find in both Spanish and Balinese local art and beachwar. So I wanted to also include that. And then later on a design phase, we can include that in the brand identity as a part of an illustration, for example. And I also particularly liked this illustration here as well. A very modernized palm tree. And exactly like the same exercise as I did in Mood board one. I did change around a lot of the colors. So again, the word mark here was black and white, and I changed that to fit the mood of the brand, as well as this illustration here. And then we also have the word mark where I particularly liked it in the filtering process shortly before. But I felt like the other word mark suited this moodboard better, so I wanted to include it in this one instead. So it still gives me that elevated feel But also that inviting and relaxing attitude about the brand. As for the photography style, I kind of kept it the same in both moodboards. I didn't want to go to astray from the brand. I didn't want it to be alienating from its guests and customers. At the end of the day, I wanted the richness and the culture and the design and the colors to come from the interior, the architecture, the fabric. And all the artwork we're going to do for the brand. And not so much from the photography style. I didn't want it to seem too aloof or too snobby as a place to go. Still wanted it to be inviting. So I kept the photography style light and casual and appealing to all different kinds of audiences that would go, whether that's a group of friends or solo traveller, or a couple. I want people when they open the brands page or the website and find this kind of photography to feel invited and delighted to go and not to keep them astray. As for the first moodboard, I let go of the colorful plates. I just thought it was visually a bit too cluttered for my liking, and instead, I replaced it with this overview shot of this beautiful, patterned, upholstered fabric and table. So I didn't really compromise on the patterns and the richness of the previous visual, but I did want to maintain some sort of visual ease when you're looking at the moodboard. So here I kind of like this dynamic feel of the striped fabric, but also this design over here. And then, as well as this bar, we have those engravings in the stone wall. So combining these three together, we have really a cool dynamic of patterns that we can use in this type of direction. Was this direction, it has more of an illustrative approach with the fabric and illustration, and the checker tiles. So they're both quite different visually, but when you look at them and then you compare them to the guidelines of the brief, they still fall under the same keywords. So at the end of the day, I want to be presenting two different mood boards because I don't want to confuse the client and present something two similar to one another, where in the end, they're just going to merge both words together. So they do need to look different. So in a nutshell, what I love about this exercise is that I get to create completely two different look and feels for a brand, but they still fall under the same category, the same brief, the same keywords. They're just visualized differently. It's as if you gave the brief to two different designers, and they both understand the brief very well. They have the strategy, they have their keywords, and then they just visualized it differently. So I think at this point, I'm happy with the outcome, and now we want to start putting it together in a format presentation and start aligning our tentative color palette on the side, and start writing the descriptions for each moodboard and put it together, finalize it as a professional presentation. 9. Format & Presentation: Okay, for the first moodboard, I'm just going to start grabbing my rectangles here, and I'm going to start color picking off my moodboard. And obviously, you can always adjust this if the color doesn't seem right. Again, this is not set in stone and you can change this later on in the process, but it's nice to give an overview of what colors this moodboard conveys. So I'm going to start with my first one here and try to go for one of these green hues. I just color picked this dark for sty green off some of these references, and then I paired it with this lemony yellow. Then I also another shade of green, which is more sage like and more neutral because you do need the contrast. I like the contrast between these two colors, and then the pop of yellow will really help to bring the brand forward and give it some flavor. And then I always like to include some kind of neutral color somewhere in the bran moodboard, so it doesn't scream colors everywhere. So a nice, muted egg shell off white color pairs well with the undertones of the green and the yellow here. I think that's a good start for now for this moodboard. So let's jump to the other one. Okay. And then for this moodboard, I actually added an extra color, which is not really a color. It's just a pop of black because I do want to add accents of black in this brand. I think it will really highlight the brown and the pink really, really well and give it that extra accent of boldness. So I did add just, like, a little bit of color here. And I really like the bold direction of this brand because nobody thinks of a beach club on the beach and thinks brown, black and pink. But this is where you kind of break the usual boundaries, especially with a category that's extremely saturated like this one, and you really want to stand out from all the blues and the urquises, and the whites and all those coastal feelings. This is where you can find room to kind of break the rules, but under a proper airtight brief. And here again, I also included a little bit of leafy green, which is a common factor between both directions, because both directions still want to be luscious and rich in nature because it's an outdoor space at the end of the day. So I did want to include that in both directions. And as the same with direction one, I still included another neutral color here, which is a more deeper beige than off white. I think it will really parallel with the colors above it. So this is just again, a guide for you. You don't have to stick to these colors because we know at the end of the day when you start designing, you will want to change some stuff, and that's okay. But it's a good start for now. Okay, so I think both moodboards are good to go. What I want to do next is copy paste these onto keynote. I usually use keynote for presentation purposes, but it's totally fine. If you stay here on Illustrator, you can just create a text box and start writing the descriptions here, export it to PDF and you're good to go. Keynote is basically the same thing. I'm just going to add some header slides between each moodboard, and it's usually just a program that I like to use for presentations, personal preference up to you. All right. Welcome back to keynotes. So I'm using the same slide format as I did with the brief and the strategy, which is usually the case when I'm doing any branding project just to keep things consistent. So again, I have the name of the brand, and as a subtitle, what kind of document this is and the date down below. So usually in a presentation form, I will have the brief and the strategy recapped in a shorter version before I present the mood parts, just to recap some of the things we talked about and to make it relevant as I move on to the mood parts. But for now, we're just going to jump into the format right away. So again, I just have a header slide here, direction one, and my mood board. So we just want to jump into here the description. It's the final step, and again, it's not necessary, but I think it just helps when you have some type of aid to read as you're looking through these images, because you as the designer, you worked on them, you spent hours, days Maybe even a week, looking at these references, but a client is going to see this for the first time. So they will need some helping words, let's say. So keynote is pretty easy to use, and just going to go here to textbox, and it's going to have a text box here, and then click on format. I want this to not be bold. All right. So mood board description. So here, I just want to basically describe the moodboard and just a couple of sentences. If I were to summarize the look and feel and the emotion and the character and the personality that's coming out of this moodboard, what would I say? So this is sort of the prompt I tell myself before I go ahead and write a description. And it also helps you prepare when you come to present this to a client, so you know exactly what to say when you write all of these things down. I was inspired by the colors and all the dynamic lines of stripes and thin lines and patterns and dots from the moodboard. I ended up writing. This moodboard takes its warm and dynamic energy from the sun and its refined and relaxing attitude from nature's colors and channels them into a rich visual language of character and flare. So something along the lines of that just introduces your mood board as an overall. Pick the right keywords, keywords directly derived from your brief and strategy. Can stress how important that is enough to read it over and over again. Familiarize yourself with it so much, and that will help you talk about the brand from the very beginning in a very confident way. Okay. Next up, I need to describe the type of imagery that's here. For the imagery, I wrote down that it displays a variety of refinement, attention to detail, textures from nature, a dedicated and exotic approach to food. Lastly, a portrayal of people in their natural state, socializing in the moment, and relishing in enjoyment. You want to hit all the points and the different kinds of photography you have, whether that's part of the interior or the fabric or any details in patterns and textures, and then the focus on food and a culinary experience, as it's part of the brand. Lastly, the people who will be found in this place and how they're going to be behaving in the space. It all adds to the imagination and painting a picture, a vivid picture for the c for their brand. All right. Next up is typography. I'm describing the typography here as inspired by the brand. It's simple inviting to most of its audience, but with a twist. Because the nature of the place is going to carry so much richness, the logo needs to take a simpler route, but without compromising unsubtle but pungent flavor. I'm simply describing my thought process and the reasoning behind why I included this particular reference, and I need to back it up to the client. Here I'm describing the fact that It is a simple logo because all the over references around it are extremely rich in colors and patterns and visual language. So you can't have richness in every aspect of the brand. You need to strike a balance. Sometimes a word mark or typography can be extremely rich because the brand identity or the photography or the rest of the brand takes a simpler and more subdued look. So the contrast here is key. And here I want to maintain simplicity. In the wordmark and in the logo or typography in general. But without compromising on character or flare either. Instead of textures in this moodboard, because moodboard number two, hammers more and textures, I want to change this little headline here to graphic elements. So for graphic elements here, I'm describing them as being inspired by the dynamic lines found in botanical nature and palm trees, since it is a big part of this brand to be around the slushies greenery. So all this greenery has organic lines and different shapes and textures in them, thin, thick, curve, straight, bulky dotted, et cetera. And all these variations are endless. So it's a modern visual language that will never be boring, and it will stand the test of time. And last but not least a couple of words about colors. So for the colors, I usually like to give them the poke names later on in my design presentation. I name each and every color I use something that's very tailored and customized to the brand. But here they're just tentative names. So take it with a grain of salt. First one is forced green, and I like to include a little description of what the color means and why it's included in this moodboard. And I always explain that it's not a personal preference and the colors have a certain psychology behind them and they are pertaining to a specific element in the brand. I like to include a little description of that. So forrest green is inspired by the luscious greenery in the space, and it also evokes richness. The lemon yellow is light, refreshing, delighting on a hot summers day. So I want to picture like a very cold beverage presented in place, and that's the color that pops in my head. And then sage green is very calm and relaxing and inviting, and it's also experienced, which again, alludes to the hospitality of the place, and that at some point in the day, you are going there to relax. And the last one is eggshell white, which I then explained that it's an essential neutral to have. Instead of a stark white color, this is the base neutral color of the brand, or at least the tentative one. And that's pretty much it. This is the layout. I usually do when I'm presenting moodboards, and I like to keep the text at a minimum. The focus is more on the visuals. But again, the text is important to take home with you, as I like to say. What I'm going to do is I'm just going to copy paste this text here onto moodboard number two. It's the same exact format, and I'm going to replace the wording. Okay. And here is the wording for mood board number two. So this is the final outcome of the presentation. And in a real world situation, if I'm presenting two or three moodboards, I typically like to have a safe direction, which in this case is this one, because it's more typical in the sense of its colors and its references and its visual language. It's what you would expect, but not in a way that's not innovative and different to its competitors, and that's well thought out of and well intentioned. It's just a little bit safer as a direction. And on the opposite side of that, I also like to include on the spectrum something that's completely wild and different, like this one, something that really challenges the brief and challenges the narrative of this type of brand and the industry of this brand. So typically, when I'm presenting, there will be a spectrum. If there are only two directions, I'll have something like this where I have a safe option and a wild card option where I can test the client's limits. If I'm presenting three options, then I'll have something in the middle that's in between both. Also do this to also understand my client a little bit better. Understand if they're more of a safe stick by the rules kind of person, and that will keep me in check throughout the entire design process not to go to a stray or go too far from what they hope and envision, and this will keep a very smooth process and communication between both of us. On the other hand, if a client is leaning more towards the wildcard option and the daring option, then I also know that they're really open to new things and suggestions and different approaches, and that will give me room to explore and really grow crazy in the design process without being afraid that I might disappoint them. So there are really a lot of benefits to this process and a branding presentation, and it's really important not just for yourself as you're preparing to go to the design process, but it's also important in terms of building your relationship with your client. That's pretty much it. This is honestly one of the most enjoyable parts of any branding project for me personally, just because there is so much that goes into it and it really is the backbone of any project, and I hope that you see that now. Whenever you're ready, we're going to jump into the next lesson where I'll take you through your class project to a completely different brand. So go crazy, have fun and enjoy it. 10. Class Project: For your class project, I've prepared a whole new fictional brief and brand for you that's been done and prepared as if you've just received it from a client. And your task is to create a brand moodboard for this brand. So the brand is called the Oyster in, and it's a boutique hotel in Lagos, Portugal. We're on a little bit of a travel theme here. Your task is to research, put together and create one brand board for this client, either using my format or any other format that you feel reflects your process. Please upload this as a JP. And if you can include an explanation of why you chose these images or what insights you feel that serve the brand's direction. I'll be uploading these files in the resources down below so that you can have them at hand. Good luck, and I can't wait to see what you create. 11. Final Thoughts: Thank you so much for taking this class. If you found helpful, I'd love it if you left me a review down below as it helps others understand what to expect from this class. I'm also currently offering one on one mentoring sessions with Skillshare on Super peer and also dropping some digital products soon on there as well. So if you ever feel like you need some one on one feedback on your mood boards or logos or projects or portfolios or career growth in general, you can book a session with me on there straight from my profile. Thank you again, and I'll see you on the next one.