Pinterest!

Whether you prefer to work with photographs, illustrations or a combination of both, the images you use when you want to express yourself and your brand publicly are most often the first thing that people see.

Like it or not, most people make judgements on whether or not they want to know more, based on images. We all judge books by their covers.

This is why, when it comes to your brand, your visual style can help you stand out from the crowd, and express what it is that makes you, you. 

You will likely have specific photographs that display your work, or help to sell your products. I’ll help you create these later in Let it Grow.

But you’ll also need what I call “brand imagery.” These might be photographs, illustrations or patterns. They don’t illustrate a specific thing or action related to your work or business, but they help to express the mood of your brand. For example:

A photograph of someone drinking a can of Coke is a product image. But a photograph of people dancing under the sprinkler on a hot day expresses the joyful, summer-time mood of Coca Cola’s brand.

Icons of houses, dollar signs, and wealth-building infographics are service illustrations for a bank. But a photograph of a person sitting down in their kitchen, with a cup of tea in hand, looking relaxed and content, expresses the sense of “a place of my own” and security that many banks want to engender.

Once you know to look out for it, you’ll see that brand imagery is used in all kinds of places:

  • Newsletters

  • Websites

  • Brochures

  • Design briefs

  • Shop banners

  • Social media platforms

  • Business cards

  • Postcards

  • Media stories about you

  • Pinterest boards

  • Presentations

  • Video tutorials

And whether you decide to create your own visuals or outsource photography and illustrations to a friend or professional, it helps to have a concrete idea of your visual style so that you can keep things in line with your brand.

So we’re going to make a start on developing that visual style in this exercise. I want you to go onto Pinterest, and create FOUR new boards, using the instructions below.

Your Pinterest boards

  • 1. Pin your mood boards

    Create THREE boards, one for each of your mood words. In each board, I want you to pin pictures that feel the way that word feels to you. You’re not trying to pin illustrations of what you do, or even what the mood word looks like. Just how the words feel. This will probably feel tricky at first, but it will get easier as you keep going, and you’ll get onto a roll. Aim for at least 30 images, so you can get into the zone.

  • 2. Pin pictures you like

    Create a new board on Pinterest, and spend some time down the rabbit hole, pinning pictures that are visually appealing to you. Not craft techniques you want to master, not recipes you want to try, just pictures that you like the look of (and it doesn’t matter why you like the look of them). Pin as many as you can in one sitting, but aim for a minimum of 30 (hopefully more).