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How to Create a Brand Board

How to create a brand board

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Consistent branding is key for building recognition with your audience! In this post, you’ll learn how a brand board can help boost brand recognition and make content creation faster. You don’t have to start from scratch though! I made you a free brand board template to help you create your brand board fast. You can grab that at the bottom of the page.

What’s a brand board And why do you need one?

A brand board is a quick reference for all of your brand assets that will help you make sure your content is visually consistent across all your platforms. Your brand board should include:

  • Your primary logo (this might be your website header)
  • Alternate logos (like a round logo button, watermarks, etc.)
  • Your brand fonts & colors
  • Any patterns, icons, or images you use in your branding or for inspiration

Let’s Create your brand board!

If you’ve had branding professionally created for you, you should have everything you need to create a brand board. If you’re more of a DIYer when it comes to branding, you might need to do a little searching, but I’ll tell you exactly what to include and where to find it!

1. Your Primary Logo

This is the main logo that you use. In most cases, it’s the header image on your website. If you use a tagline, you might want to type this in right below your primary logo on your brand board.

2. Alternate Logos

Chances are, you have at least a couple of alternate logo styles. You might have a round or square version, a text-only version that you use as a watermark, a favicon for your site, or a photo logo.

Add all of these to your brand board so you can see everything in one place. It’ll help you choose the best one for each project you’re working on, and keep you from constantly reusing just one version of your logo.

3. Your Brand Color Palette

One of my favorite parts of my brand board is the quick reference for my brand colors and their color codes. I use this all the time! You’ll want to include your primary colors (those in your logo) but also any accent colors that you’re using on your website or in things you create.

If you don’t know your exact colors, grab the ColorZilla extension for chrome. It has an eyedropper tool that will pick up the color from any webpage and give you the color codes. You can also use the eyedropper tool in PowerPoint or Keynote to choose colors from your logo.

Add the hex codes for each of your colors to your brand board because that’s what you’ll need to use those colors on websites and in most apps. If you have the RGB colors instead (PowerPoint users, that’s you), you can use the color code converter to get the hex codes.

4. Brand Fonts

When I say brand fonts, you’re probably thinking of the fonts in your logo. And that’s part of it. You definitely want to add your logo fonts to your brand board. If you used a designer and you aren’t sure what they are, reach out to them or use this site to identify fonts from an image.

But that’s not it. You should also include the fonts on your website. When you’re creating social media images or freebies, use these fonts to keep a cohesive look! Finding out what fonts are on your site is easy with the What the Font extension for Chrome. Just right click on some text and select What the Font from the menu. You’ll get a popup with the font name, its weight and size, and the color used.

5. Patterns, Icons, & Images

Last but not least, add any specific patterns or icons you use in your branding. If you don’t have any of those, choose some images that you want to keep for inspiration. Maybe some of your favorite Instagram photos in your brand colors or some flat lays you love.

Ok, I made my brand board… now what?

Once you’ve created your brand board, it’s useless if you don’t use it! Think about all the times you create images or printables for your business.

When you get ready to start creating something, grab your brand board and use those same fonts & colors in whatever you’re creating.

If that sounds limiting to you, try to reframe your thinking… Your images and printables don’t need to all be unique and different from one another. If you stick to a group of consistent fonts & colors, your audience will recognize your work anywhere, and they’ll love it!

Keep a copy of the brand board wherever you tend to work, on whatever devices you use. For me, that means I keep a printed copy in the front of my notebook. I also save it as a JPEG and save that to my phone and my iPad in a folder with my logos and other brand assets.

Get your free brand board template!

You do not have to start from scratch! I’ve put together a brand board template for you in PowerPoint and Keynote. The layout is all done for you, so you can just fill in your info and be ready to use it!

When you download the freebie, you’ll also get a video walkthrough of exactly how to use the templates.

Free Brand Board Templates

Get a jumpstart on creating your brand board with these free templates for PowerPoint and Keynote.

I’ll even send you an instructional video to show you exactly how to use the templates to create your brand board!

If you’re over your DIY branding and ready to work with a professional, I’d love to help! Learn more about branding and logo design, and get in touch with me to get on my schedule!

How to create a brand board