Put together images, patterns, and colors for how you see your startup.
Choosing colors and images that match your startup is a helpful exercise for you and your team to get a better idea of your brand’s personality. The images and colors can help you to navigate website design, content creation, and even customer strategy.
For example, say you’re a travel company, creating a vision board for your brand with private jets and yachts paints a very different picture, than vision boarding backpackers and hikers. It tells a different story not only of your customer, but also your brand’s personality, which can affect who buys your product. See below:
To vision board your brand, first start by looking at colors you think represent your company. I love the Color Emotion Guide below to align the emotion you want your startup to convey with the color of your logo or brand (this is a great next step after working on your brand personality traits exercise).
Once you have a color or colors in mind, some things to also think about are the shade of that color. A dark blue has a very different feel to it than a turquoise blue.
Also, think about the colors that go with that color. Maybe your brand is a royal blue and pink, which could be more feminine, whereas dark blue and orange may be more masculine or gender neutral.
Using tools like Google Image Search or Pinterest will help you to define the color tone and personality of your brand. You can also use them to start to collage images, patterns, textures, experiences, and people that embody your brand. For example, say you have decided that your brand’s primary color is orange. What is it about orange is that makes your brand? Is it a basketball, which is perhaps more athletic or confident, or is it an orange lantern, which is more warm and friendly?
Similar exercises that are a fun way to help you visualize your brand are to use people (are you a Leonardo De Caprio, or are you more of a Mark Ruffalo?), animals (what animal would your brand be?), and food (what food would your brand be?). Perhaps think about the founders of your company or your ideal customer as a way to bring the brand to life.
When I have collected my images, I like to put them together and make an actual collage using PowerPoint or Keynote. I’ll also paste the company’s logo on top with the personality words. See an example below from my client, Dauntless, an online education site for helping men come into positive masculinity.
Even a few images, words, and colors start to paint a strong picture of a brand. Paste your collage on the wall of your office to refer to it when working on your website, or even making a key decisions for the company. You can ask yourself, “Is this aligned with our brand?”
Have fun collaging and post your results in the comments below!
