Defining Your Authentic Brand

A true brand represents the 3 P’s – passion, purpose & personality. Beginning with a deep dive into the discovery process helps define the understanding of what your brand reflects at its core. After the deep dive, it is time to look into the design elements. My favorite part is beginning with creating color palettes because they help begin to set the overall aesthetic for a brand.

The process begins by asking all of my branding clients to complete a branding questionnaire that tells me more about the purpose behind their business. I also ask them to put together a Pinterest board as a starting point. This board can contain a few logos and other design elements, but in general I can learn so much more about a client when they pin a variety of artwork so I can get a good idea of their overall aesthetic.

FOLLOW THE STEPS

01

Create a new (secret) board in Pinterest. Go back through all of your past pins and add the ones that really feel like you to that new board. You can even add some of your own work to the board. If you don’t have a lot of pins yet, try searching for design inspiration, fashion, home, specific colors and even words that describe a mood.

02

Once you have the Pinterest board together and refined to your favorite pins, create a Canva account or use Photoshop to create a mood board and color palette. I like Canva a lot because you do not have to have the knowledge of using photoshop to create a mood board. You can create a free account and there are plenty of options. Once you get the hang of using Canva, it is quick and simple to produce a variety of design elements. They have so many templates to choose from or you can start with a blank canvas and create your own. Here are some examples of mood boards:

03

Once you choose a template and add your pins and inspiration, you can easily download a PDF that is print ready. You can use this art on your vision board or keep the file on your computer as a reference of your aesthetic.

04

Now you can implement it! Use the mood board and color palette you just created to help change the colors on your website, to create a brand logo and even to help theme your color on Instagram!

Creatively Inspired,Jenny

JENNY BALLOU

JENNY BALLOU