What is a stylescape?
Stylescapes are a carefully selected mix of images, textures, colors, shapes, and fonts that convey the overall look and feel of a brand identity, and inspire us to develop further visual elements. A stylescape is not a mood board. Moodboards are generally used for inspiration and unlike a mood board (a collection of visual reference points), stylescapes include our initial design decisions that support the brief and goals of the client. For example, they may also include a visual representation of a brand value, a strapline or reflect a customer journey or profile
How do stylescapes help our clients?
They help us to communicate our early thoughts to our clients. This stage of a project begins after approval of a written brief and is an important process to carry out before developing mock ups. Not only does a stylescape make it easier for our clients to understand our thinking, it also helps them get a better sense of what direction we want to take with their overall brand identity. In short, a stylescape is key when it comes to communicating our vision for a client’s brand development. Usually, three alternative creative directions are presented to the client and their feedback is used to choose specific components from each direction. This helps to guide our design decisions in the later stages of the project.
How do we create a stylescape?
Stylescapes are usually created within our design software and are collated from scanned imagery, patterns, fonts, words, icons or colours. We sometimes use existing materials supplied by our clients to see how our new vision fits in with their existing brand elements. They usually take the form of a single-page document, that can be stuck to a wall for side-by-side comparison with other stylescape concepts.
In summary
Hopefully, this article helps you to better understand the key role stylescapes play in developing a successful brand identity and how they help us to communicate early ideas more effectively. Overall, it perhaps best shows the level of thinking and detail that goes into every identity project and the value we add. It’s why successful businesses always see the value in brand development and why its so important to future growth.
