Here you can find out what are mood boards good for and how to create one. Mood boards could prove the most helpful thing to get the business card you want.
A mood board helps by inspiring the designer, streamlines the work process, and it helps getting the job started. It also saves a lot of time and wasted effort by communicating your ideas of the design more clearly than words ever could. This helps to avoid misunderstandings that could lead to a rejected design which is a nightmare for the client and more so for the designer who poured his heart into the project and now has to start over.
Here are some of my tips on creating mood boards:
1. How to get started:
If you’re confused and don’t know how to even begin, than I have good news for you. There are websites that help you in the creating process of the mood boards. One that I recommend is Pinterest. On this site it’s easy to make a collection of images that describe your brand, you just need to pin the thing you want and it will automatically make a collection.
2. The content should reflect the qualities of the brand:
You should search for images that show the qualities that your brand can be identified with. For example - cold, winter, indoors: snowfall seen through the window, a burning fireplace, a shot of steaming hot chocolate etc. Imagery like this is rather thematic, and they represent the company’s style, target audience, which can prove to be a great starting point for the design.
3. Don’t overdo it:
Sometimes less is better. Don’t create many pages as that may water down your ideas. Use only images that clearly represent your brand and stick with it. This highlights the style you’re trying to achieve and speak more clearly about it to the designer, and it’s easier to comprehend.
4. Color:
The color palette is one of the most important things, it should be clarified by the used imagery. You can include fabrics, objects that represent the color you desire. Sometimes this happens naturally, as trough choosing images that suit your style may start sharing the same color, but in case you have multiple color schemes, you should try to simplify it, or find other images.
5. Fonts:
Images and colors are not everything. Typography is a crucial part of a business card, so the inclusion of a fitting font is indeed a wise decision. Naturally the fonts chosen should be in harmony with the rest of the images as this can make a business card great or ruin a design.
These were my top tips on mood boards in a nutshell. All in all, a mood board is a great tool that improves the end result by helping both sides, and if I wasn’t clear enough I strongly recommend using them.
