Now that you’ve rounded up some visual inspiration, it’s time to clean it up a bit and compile your images onto an inspiration board.

An inspiration board is simply a graphic compiled of photos, colors, and patterns that provide visual direction for a design project (in this case, your brand).

You’ll come back to this board in the coming weeks for visual reference.

As you build out your brand, you’ll be able to weigh all of the visuals (like your logo, color palette, patterns, fonts, icons, etc.) against this board to ensure that every component stays consistent.

This post is part of Elle & Company’s 4-week Brand Challenge. Click here to see more details, sign up, and access the free workbook.

Now that you’ve considered some non-visual aspects of your brand, it’s time to take all of the work you’ve done up to this point and create some visuals.

But here’s the thing: It can be difficult to create visuals for a brand solely off keywords and a mission statement.

What does “vibrant, authentic, refreshing, and bold” actually look like?

Well, it can look like a lot of things. And that’s why it’s helpful to have a visual starting point.

This post is part of Elle & Company’s 4-week Brand Challenge. Click here to see more details, sign up, and access the free workbook.

I know, I know. I promised to help you come up with a visual direction for your brand this week.

But before we get into inspiration boards and logo designs, remember that your brand isn’t simply a logo and a color palette; it’s an experience.

There are two key components to a brand: tangibles and intangibles.

We often think about the tangible components, like logos, color palettes, and fonts.

But intangible components, like the words you use in your social media captions and the names of your products, can have a big impact on how your brand is perceived.

This post is part of Elle & Company’s 4-week Brand Challenge. Click here to see more details, sign up, and access the free workbook.

So much of branding has to do with communication.

In fact, while I often tell people that I majored in graphic design in college, my real degree was in “Visual Communication Design.”

Because the visuals in every design are always communicating something to people.

That’s why it’s important to make sure that the design of your brand is saying the right things to potential clients and customers.

And that’s why we’ve been spending so much time on this “groundwork” stage of the branding process. Through your future goals, mission statement, client profile, and the 5 adjectives you’ll come up with to summarize your brand in today’s action step, you’re determining what needs to be communicated.

This post is part of Elle & Company’s 4-week Brand Challenge. Click here to see more details, sign up, and access the free workbook.

We’re on Day 4 of the Brand Challenge, and you might be surprised that we still haven’t jumped into any of the major visuals like fonts, colors, and logos.

I promise we’ll get to those soon!

But branding (and design, in general) is about much more than making things look good.

The purpose of branding is to catch the attention of potential clients and customers and build trust with them so that they’ll purchase your products and book your services.

In order to do that, you have to know:

1. Whether your current brand is effective

2. Where your business is headed

3. The mission of your business

4. And what type of clients you want to be working with

You’ve conducted a brand evaluation, set business goals, and written your mission statement in Days 1-3 of this challenge.

And today, you’re going to zero in on the type of clients and customers you want to be working with.

This post is part of Elle & Company’s 4-week Brand Challenge. Click here to see more details, sign up, and access the free workbook.