Five Tips For Honing In On Your Design Aesthetic

A defined design aesthetic is one of the most powerful tools you can have when starting your event design work. Why? It creates cohesion and consistency throughout your event. Honing in on exactly how to define and what to include in your design aesthetic – can be tricky though. But if done well, it ensures your event is complete, consistent, and uniquely yours.

This foundational approach to design is one of the most overlooked steps in the event planning process. It is the aspect of wedding planning that couples come to us asking for our assistance. And its because the process of working leading with a defined design is not well defined in the event world.

More often than not, couples begin design work by gathering inspiration images without direction. And that leads to the pinterest rabbit hole. And what is most often the culprit – too much inspiration. That’s right. Inspiration overwhelm. It creates confusion. It creates uncertainty. And it creates too many different directions.

This ultimately leads to frustration and stress – two things I want to help you avoid today. In an early post, I shared four essential elements to incorporate into your design. Today I am sharing how to incorporate these by identifying your overall design aesthetic. Let’s get started!

Select Your Guiding Words

First I want you to identify words that will help guide step two:

• Identify three words that describe how you want your guests feel when they interact with your event. This can be at any point they are introduced to your event. Examples include: Cared for, Delighted, Inspired, Welcomed, Grateful, etc.
• Identify three words that describe the event as a whole. Think high level here. Examples are – Industrial, Garden Inspired, European Influence, Seaside Escape, Whimsical, Old World, Ethereal, etc.

Identify Your Color Palette

Second I want you to list out the colors you plan to carry through your event. Start with your primary colors and then add in the accents. Be sure to take in things like seasonality, venue specific colors that are already there, attire, formality of the event, and your favorite colors into consideration.

Next Up Textures, Metals, and Accents

Third, I want you to think about textures and metal accents you plan to incorporate. Will you include gauzy runners, linen, velvet, silks? Are you drawn to golds, silvers, stone, clear glass, geometric shapes?  Also think about mediums – chalkboard, wood, mirrors, glass, etc Knowing what accent details you are most drawn to gives you a starting point to keep things like vessel selection, signage selection, etc consistent. This may seem like a small detail but consistency here is so important.

Basic Event Inspiration – Florals, Paper, and Linens

Fourth, basic event inspiration. Here are the elements I would invite you to hone in on first – florals, paper, and linen. Each of these will be broken into finer details because they are vast categories however having a single inspiration image for each of these gives further direction to the mood and overall aesthetic. Select a single image that is your absolute favorite for each of these.

Head to Pinterest

Finally, for my fifth tip today I want to invite you to head into Pinterest and start a fresh board. Now that you’ve identified direction for your design – pairing your words with foundational imagery helps you further identify the overall mood, vision, and look. Once you’ve created the new Pinterest board, head to any old wedding boards you’ve already started and look for images that align with the foundational elements you identified above.

I would suggest starting with images align the words you’ve selected above. These will help you identify visuals that match your events overall mood. Then I would move into color, textures and accents, and I would add your inspiration images for florals, paper, and linen.

From this foundation – you are ready for the next step. The overall event moodboard. Interested in learning how to create your own moodboard and how this will guide your next steps in the design process? Head to our facebook group and join the fun – we will chatting about all this tomorrow in our live!