What does your brand vision look like?
I'm sure you've heard about a Mood Board. It's a collage that pieces together images that you love to help you communicate what you're trying to create. For the purposes of branding, it would include colors, typography, images or illustrations that help evoke a particular feeling you want your clients to get when interacting with your brand. I've done plenty of these for myself and my clients.
Recently, I did some work with the lovely Anat Rodan, and she's been creating a Brand Vision Board, one that represents the feeling of how you see yourself running and being in your business. This is done prior to getting too heavy into strategy and well before we even start thinking of visual identity or the mood board for your brand visuals. I gotta say, I really enjoyed doing this for myself and thought I'd share what mine looks like.
My Brand Vision Board is really only meant to make sense to me, as the business owner, so let me walk you through this a little bit. You'll see that each image is numbered, and that's because I've written a little description of what each image is meant to represent and what it means to me.
1 | I envision a location independent lifestyle that allows me to travel and work from beautiful locations from which I can draw inspiration and learn from different cultures that will inform the work I do for my clients.
2 | A comfortable and approachable environment, apt for the deep work we will be doing, allowing us both to share vulnerably without feeling too guarded.
3 | Beautifully presented materials that my clients can take ownership of and love, that represent their brand and arm them with what they need to grow their business.
4 | Room to reflect and contemplate the process. Allowing time for things to sink in and for new ideas to arise. Steady progress and thoughtfulness is better than rushing through.
5 | A combination of simple sophistication with pops of something special to add interest. It doesn’t have to all be plain and it doesn’t always have to be “the most”.
6 | Taking into account the little things that people often overlook in order to bring joy and delight clients. (Not everyone remembers to paint a door, it’s often a recessive fixture, but what a difference it can make in a room).
7 | Plant a seed and help it bloom. Working individually with clients in a space that not only explores their business needs, but allows them to bring in the parts of themselves that are unique and beautiful, that they may not have necessarily realized are an asset to the work that they offer. A holistic view of the person, not just the “marketable” pieces.
8 | Always find a way to bring joy into everything we do. You're not really successful, in my opinion, if you're not finding joy in what you do.
I've made a few mood boards in the past on Pinterest and the plus side of that is it lets me to pin as many images as I like. What I like about this approach though, is that it allows me to get more focused. In this case, I have 8 images to choose so it encourages me to be more intentional with the images that I pick. This helped me really see the images that felt right and which felt a little out of place.
The more clarity you have, the easier the next steps become.
