We all like to pin logos and design pieces that we love. I would bet you that almost every business owner, at least those who know what Pinterest is and what it’s used for, have a pinterest board for pretty design. Five bucks right now!

It’s an automatic response for business owners, because pinterest is full of beautiful and inspiring things and you want to keep for a rainy day.

Well you’re in luck because one of the foundations of the design process is finding and gathering inspiration for a project!

All designers do it differently, but for me specifically, one of the beginning steps in the process is creating a moodboard for each project that acts as a guideline for the overall style, look and feel for the brand/stationery piece/website. The moodboard keeps myself and my clients on track throughout the process, in case distractions come knocking.

To create the moodboard, I ask each client to gather inspiration for the project. A popular questions that I get with this request is: “What kind of inspiration should I gather? And what should I look and search for?”

First off, when you are gathering inspiration for your project, your designer should guide you through what to look for and get you in the right mindset to start gathering. This includes talking through how you want your brand to feel to potential customers, it includes your goals for the next few months/years, it includes your mission statement and the “why” behind your business, and it includes making keywords for your brand style. Having these things in mind helps to start the gathering process.

So here are some things to keep in mind when searching for inspiration for a project:

1. YOU NEED TO THINK LIKE YOUR BUSINESS & AUDIENCE

You aren’t gathering what YOU like personally, but things that your business feels like and looks like, and what your target audience would be attracted to. If it’s easier for you, think of your business as a person. How old is it? What gender? What would it’s wardrobe or home style look like? Where would it live? What would it’s favorite show be? Etc. AND you can do this for your target audience also!

You’ve heard of an ideal client profile, right? If not, Jasmine Star has a great ideal client profile exercise in her blogpost, and if you own a business, you need one! This will help you build out characteristics and personality traits, so that answering the above questions will be much more natural.

2. DON’T JUST GATHER DESIGN RELATED PIECES

I know it’s really easy to get on pinterest and search for “pretty business cards” and browse until your eyes fall out, but it isn’t helpful for gathering inspiration, or honestly for using your time well.

What you need to look for is overall styles.

Does your business have a coastal style? Search for coastal cities and beach views. Does your business have a rustic, mountain style? Search for vintage compasses or trail images. Does your business have a high-end downtown feel? Search for skyscrapers, big cities, luxury offices or lofts. It’s about finding the style you want for your business.

Also look for color schemes, textures, and images of what your services/products are. Include images of your work! That is a huge part of helping your designer understand your style.

One thing to make sure that you don’t get off track is to put parameters in place for your searching so that your board doesn’t get fuzzy. If your style is a romantic city feel, then you should not be looking at the southern countryside. If your style is natural and bohemian, you should not be looking at high contrast images or sharp lines. STAY WITHIN YOUR STYLE and it will serve you well!

 

3. WHEN GATHERING DESIGN RELATED PIECES, KEEP IT MINIMAL

Finally, it’s time to look at actual design inspiration. By using the first two tips, this should fall into place fairly easily and be the least amount of inspiration that you have on your pinterest board.

A good designer can use other designer’s work as inspiration for an original idea, but having too much design work as inspiration can easily stick into our creative brains and be hard not to bring into the project. So help your designer out and don’t overload them with logo’s that you love. Just include a handful – 5-10 max.

SIDEBAR: There is a difference between using another’s work as inspiration for our own, and outright copying another designer’s work. If your designer is copying someone else’s work – RUN, as far away as you can and take your money with you, because someone will catch it and you will have sunk all your money into a logo/stationery/brand that you can’t legally use. I’ve seen it happen and it is a terrible situation to be in. (end of sidebar.)

You are free to search logo design, business cards, letterheads, business stationery, branding boards, color palettes, illustrations, etc. If you’re a product based business, or have a dream to eventually have an office of your own or a store of your own, search for office inspiration, store fronts, shop displays, etc. If you LOVE letterpress business cards, by all means include a few examples. If you know you are going to want t-shirts designed or mugs made with your logo, include examples of that also. Your inspiration doesn’t have to ONLY be logos. Gather a variety, because it will give your designer a much better idea of the styles that you like.

4. HOW MANY IS TOO MANY?

A good rule of thumb for curating the best inspiration board that will easily show your overall style, what you like, and what you expect is to plan a few pinning sessions and have a weeding out phase. This will not only be helpful to your designer, but also if you hire a stylist or a photographer, they will have everything they need in one board, instead of having to create one for each. Which will save you a TON of time and energy in the long run.

Now let’s talk sessions:

The first session should be your “pin win abandon” session, where you go through each category and pin everything that catches your eye in a deep way. This is like a brainstorming session for your board.

Your second session is where you may hit some of the categories that you didn’t get a chance to in the first session. Or you may have not been clear about a few categories and you want to dive in a little deeper.

Your 3rd and last session will be the “weeding out / curating” session, where you will ONLY look at your current board. You will be deleting pins that don’t fit with the others. My recommendation is to keep no more than 3-5 pins per category. That means that you don’t need 20 different images of headshots or 10 different pictures of plants. 3-5 is going to get the overall look and feel across, and a designer, photographer or stylist will be able to use their given skills to read your board and get a good idea of your style!

I hope that you find this helpful as you start working through a project, or even curating a style that you are dreaming or planning for.

If you would like to work with me on your branding, please head over to the contact page and inquire!

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