A goal of mine every year is to create a personal/professional vision board for the coming year. A guide for manifesting all I want to accomplish and a way to put the intentions I have set into visual format. As a designer, mood boards have always been a part of the conceptualization of a project. Before diving into a search for a perfect set of stock photography, creating a web design template or writing page content, it is imperative to create a sense of colors, textures and an overall theme to compliment the established branding of the business or product. It is Marketing Design 101.

The act of creating a visual representation of my ideal future and the recognized benefits of do so intrigued me. What imagery would I choose to represent all of who I am and everything I want to achieve over time. As desirable as the task has been over the years, the initiation of the activity has been daunting and left me struggling with how to approach such an endeavor.

First of all, who has a pile of magazines at their disposal anymore for a traditional vision board? I wasn’t about to go buy out a shelf of magazines in the hope that they may have imagery to support the intentions I wanted to set. I suppose I could have found items online and printed them, but the quality would be different unless I bought special paper and printed them on the office printer. Again, the thought of doing so took away the appeal of the project at hand. All this led to putting my vision board on the back burner each January until it disappeared from my subconscious all together.

The recent turn of the calendar year brought the idea back into circulation. This time, I had the added drive of a growing business and new love affair with blogging propelling me towards finding a solution. As a digital creator, the ah-ha moment that lead me to finally create my first vision board, was also one of my biggest “duh, you should have thought of this before”, palm-to-forehead experiences. With a wealth of design applications at my finger tips, why not create my vision board on the very tools I used in my daily life? It then occurred to me; other people may have the same desire and run into similar internal conflicts on how to get a vision board project off the ground without buying out your local newsstand. So, instead of taking this to one of my advanced design tools, I took this project to Canva and absolutely love the results!

Why should you create a vision board?

Setting an intention toward a goal or lifestyle change is most commonly initiated at the beginning of a year, month, week, or even a day. The turn of calendar sets our mind to accepting a challenge and grants us the sensation of starting anew. The act of setting attainable milestones is vital in the success of our growth and achievements, however losing sight of the our goal long before we achieve it is more common than we like to admit. Having a daily representation of what we want in our life keeps the finish line in view even when we are overcome with the realization of the necessary tasks and obstacles we must face on the path to get there.

When I was young, my mom had a picture of a convertible Chrysler Lebaron on our fridge. Every time she reached for the milk to pour in one of her 5 children’s cereal, that car was a tangible reminder of what she would someday own. Although the goal was impractical due the necessity for a larger mode of transportation for her large family, that did not stop her from visualizing that car in her future. Sure enough, when I was in college, my mom purchased her sought after convertible. She successfully manifested that luxury into her life.

So, how do you start a vision board?

Take some time to consider what you want to strive for. Do you want your vision board to encompass all aspects of your life? Or do you want to focus on one – work, family, fitness, etc? Make a list of words that represent your journey and inspire you to work towards your goals. Start to visualize imagery that may represent these words. Think outside the box, be creative, you don’t need a professional photoshoot to attain the right imagery. It should just be something that is an internal trigger for what you are trying to achieve.

Explore Vision Board Examples

A simple search on Pinterest will bring up a multitude of vision boards others have made for themselves. There is no right or wrong to how you display your visions but it is always fun to see how others have done it.

Image search

Once you have an idea of the direction, log on. There is free imagery everywhere on the internet that is yours for the taking. Create a folder on your computer and start saving images from Google and Pinterest. Create a board on Pinterest to house the images and sayings you pin for your board. This vision board is for you – use the images you see that make you feel something. I found some of my imagery from the stock photos within Canva, some off Pinterest and others from my own photo gallery. Every image means something significant to me and is intended to be a reminder of the vision I have set for myself for 2021.

Open a Free Canva account

Honestly, there are other design creation sites out there but Canva tends to be the one I find most of my clients already using for their small projects. Sign up for the free account, it gives you limited access to photos compared to the purchased plan however for your vision board, it will serve its purpose.

After you have successfully created your free account, go to the purple “create a design” button and select “poster size”.

In left panel, select “Upload Media”.

Select “Device”, find all the images you saved to your computer for your vision board and press “Save” to upload to Canva.

Select “Element” in left panel.

• Stroll to grids
• Select how many picture slots you want to add and the grid format 

Now go to uploads and start to drag and drop your pictures onto the poster.

From there, you can add colors, text, emojis, shapes, etc. Search around in the panels and be creative.

Print it. Frame it. Display it.

Once you are satisfied with your vision board, go to “Print Poster” in upper right

I chose to print my vision board at the smaller size (12×16) and it cost $6 with FREE 4-7 day shipping.

I then purchased an inexpensive frame from Amazon to display my work and keep my board on my desk.

Once I finished my first vision board, I encouraged my 14-year-old daughter to give it a try. She took her board in a totally different path and I love it. Below is her version, as well as one I created for my college bound son and one I created as a mood board for my blog.

There are so many ways to utilize the practice of creating a vision board. Have fun with it

Examples of Vision Boards

Malia’s Vision Board

Jacob’s Vision Board

Hopefully he likes the vision I created for him 

ErikaLyn Brand Board

Other Ways to Create Your Vision Board

• Make it the wallpaper on your desktop, tablet or mobile phone. That is a sure way to keep your vision in check
• Just create a compilation of imagery in a Pinterest board. This will give you the flexibility to take items out and add to it as the year goes on.
• Do a good old fashion collage of cut outs from magazines and/or printouts from the computer.