How to Start Creating Your Brand

When you have a cool idea for a blog or website, it can be difficult to create a cohesive look for your idea. This blog post will help you in the beginning stages of developing your brand’s look.

Step 1: Start gathering images

I recommend using Pinterest to gather all your images; it’s free, easy to use and you have access to thousands of images to be inspired by. You can also take pictures and upload them easily to your account, making it easy to add things you see in your everyday life to your inspiration board.

Once you have a Pinterest account, create a secret board (a secret board just means that no one can see it) and start pinning images that match the look you want. Don’t just look at the subject of the image, look at the style and color palette used. During this step, don’t stress out if you images don’t look like a mood board that you’ve seen others post. Just keep collecting images that speak to you. When you pin a new image onto your mood board, make a comment about the image. It doesn’t have to be much, just enough to remind you why you picked that particular image. I tend to pin soo many images, that I sometimes forget what I liked about some of them. Making a quick comment will help jog your memory.

Step 2: Walk away

Take a break – don’t look at Pinterest or your board for a week. I know this sounds crazy, who has a week to put off working on their projects? Especially ones you are really passionate about, but by taking a break from the project will help you gain clarity when you go back to it. You will be able to look at your board and critique it more objectively. Also, just because you aren’t looking at the imagery for your project doesn’t mean you can’t work on it at all, instead of focusing on the visual aspects work on the content. Use this time to write blog posts or map out pages for your website.

Step 3: Evaluate your images & look for patterns

Now that you took a break, you can come back to this project with fresh eyes. Look for similarities in your images – do you lean towards certain colors? Do you like aerial shots or pictures of people? What kind of typography is in your photos? Do you see a lot of geometric patterns or are they more abstract? You get the point, identifying these similarities will help you focus in on your brand.

Step 4: Delete any unnecessary images

You’ve gathered your images and found the common themes throughout them. Now it’s time to delete any images that don’t fit the themes you’ve discovered. Removing images that don’t fit the color theme or style of the majority of your images will help visually clarify what you want to achieve.

Once you have gone through this process, you will have a beautiful inspiration board for your brand. If you are designing your branding materials yourself, you have a good place to start. If you decide at this point you would like to hire someone to create your materials for you, the designer will have a clear idea of the look you want to achieve.

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