Featured blog and a love for moodboards!

You may have noticed before I went off on my little break that I added a 'featured blog of the week' banner to my side bar. As a graphic designer I read so many blogs every day as I search for inspiration, trends and ideas and the ones I find particularly exciting I make a note of and refer back to regularly. As I find so much inspiration in these blogs, instead of keeping them to myself, I decided I'd like to share some of my favourites with you and rather than just add them to a blog roll (where if you are like me you just click on the names you like!) I thought I'd make a series of regular spotlight posts about them. 

Little did I know when I started this that my BYW Bootcamp task this week was going to be writing about 1...what inspires me and 2...my favourite blog so the timing couldn't be more perfect. So, here goes with the first one...

I am beginning with one of my favourite graphic design blogs, that of freelance graphic & web designer Breanna Rose.

Breanna's blog is everything I aspire for mine to be. Clean, fresh and simple and totally engaging. All her posts are so interesting and she approaches them in a unique and personalised style with colourful imagery, beautiful photography and subtle but fun typography and labelling. 

One of the things I like about the blog is the clear series structure she uses. She designs  downloadable wallpapers and writes a column about her life and processes as a freelancer 'Be Free, Lance'. Here she offers great advice and tips for other freelancers which I have found really helpful and encouraging. She also uses a number of lovely guest posters to write regularly giving HTML and DIY lessons. She has a good diverse mix of features which make a really interesting read whether you are a designer or not. 

Photo from DIY guest post by Andrea Fairservice

However, the main reason Breanna's blog stayed with me and remains a firm favourite is that she shares my love of mood boards. Her mood boards are so beautiful! I've shared a few examples, but you can see lots more on her website here. 

Along the same theme of mood boards, Breanna has a bi-monthly collaboration with Cassie Pyle of The Veda House (another beautiful blog!) in their column ' Branding Backwards'. The girls ingeniously dissect their favourite brands creating mood boards showing the brand's key structure and aesthetics. They are so clever and send me into a complete mood board melt down! Breanna's moodboards can be found on Cassie's blog and Cassie's on Breanna's.  Take a look here and here.

A 'Branding Backwards' board by Cassie on Breanna's Blog

A 'Branding Backwards' board by Breanna on The Vida House.

If you enjoyed the blog you might like to take a look at her equally brilliant design work on her website. 

Hope you've enjoyed my first featured blog. Thanks to Bre for letting me share it.
I'd love to hear your thoughts.  I'm also looking for names suggestions for this column, at the moment I'm thinking 'Bookmark It Blog' but I'm open to some other suggestions....

All images belong to Breanna Rose.