You made it to branding and everyone's doing a great job!
We now continue along the web design process and discover how brand and mood boards all play an important role in establishing the right brand voice and tone for your upcoming proposed site redesigns. Feel free to develop one mood board for the current site and one for the one you're redesigning based on your most primary audience(s) OR one board for one audience and one for another - many ways to do this so have fun with it.
Example on how to think about it:
1. One board for current site and one for future site
Lets say you're redesigning a museum site cause the current one is too busy and doesn't prominently feature artwork on the home page...maybe one board articulating how busy and plain the current site is and one that articulates clean, artwork-rich and text-light direction...maybe it feels aspirational and easy to scan..
2. One board for one audience and a second one for the secondary or other primary audience (you can have 2 primary audiences)
Lets say you're doing an airline site...maybe one board that feels more "tool" or resource=centric...where business people can easily interact with scheduling, tickets and other airline services. The other board might be for typical tourists or travelers...that might feel more destination and lifestyle-centric...
These should be 20 X 30 inches...we'll project instead of printing...this is my gift to you...
So what should be on your mood boards? Anything that gets your creative point across. This can include colors, typography, imagery, illustrations, white space (or lack thereof), and messaging. If you were working with a content strategist or copywriter, you might include taglines, slogans, brand attributes (adjectives), or a vision statement. This helps the client to not only visualize the proposed style, but to see how the verbiage can support the overall experience.
Mood boards can be extremely helpful when you’re searching for an overall tone or visual language, but they can also expedite the approval of a creative direction before heading into interface design. In the past, we have noticed that separating initial creative ideas from the mechanics of the site allows the client to make clear and concise design decisions without impacting time or budget.
There are a few things to keep in mind when creating mood boards.
▪ Choose an orientation that best fits the subject matter.
▪ Take into account the audience and how you’ll be presenting to them. Your mood boards can be digital or printed (or both) depending on whether your meeting is virtual or in person.
▪ And finally, have fun. Creating mood boards is not a rigidly define activity. Use whatever pieces you can to express your vision, whether it is cutting and pasting magazine bits to Gatorboard or adding minute details and a custom polish to every serif. Do the research on mood boards...use a mixture of pictures, type, color, icons or non of those or all of those...the board as a whole should help articulate a vibe or mood for your intended direction....
Questions?
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Assignment 1:
Use stock photography/illustration, objects, colors, icons, type and/or anything else it takes to get your mood across and develop 2-mood boards (see different combinations of mood boards above) using pictures, brand attributes, color blocks, icons, etc. You can also use www.tonystone.com or www.gettyimages.com for other photo choices.
Guidelines:
- 20 x 30 format in illustrator
- save as 2 separate JPGs for projection
Assignment 2:
For next week 2/13/12) have your "coming soon" placeholder page created and uploaded to your hosting site. Send both Erin and myself the link by the beginning of class. Let us know if you have any questions. See syllabus for mood board due date.
Thx
A bad example of a picture collection Mood BoardRequired Reading - 3 out of 4 visitors...-----------------------------
Some Resources:
Marks of Excellence:
Finding the roots of trademarks in heraldry, potter's marks, monograms, and other such ancient devices, this book traces the history of the corporate visual lexicon and produces a taxonomy of the commercial age. An alphabetical section covers motifs from animals to waves, with short definitions and analyses beautifully complemented by daringly cropped and crisply photographed images. Pictures of this quality and interest would steal the show in most volumes, but the text stands up well to the challenge of images that gain force because of the familiarity of their subjects (corporate trademarks), and the unusual sense that the book's context lends to them. Marks of Excellence is a worthwhile exploration at the modern language of ownership.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Designing Brand Identity:
From an interactive website to a business card, a brand must be recognizable, differentiated and help build customer loyalty. This indispensable resource presents brand identity fundamentals and a comprehensive dynamic process that help brands succeed. From researching the competition to translating the vision of the CEO to designing and implementing an integrated brand identity program, the meticulous development process is presented through a highly visible step by step approach in five phases: research and analysis, brand and identity strategy, brand identity design, brand identity applications and managing brand assets.
