With pop culture and social media ruling the world, the use of high-quality photography has become more important than ever for any business that hopes to succeed. Many of the top websites out there that aim to share information about your business rely on 10% text and 90% imagery. We’re not talking about blogs, we’re talking about the platforms that encourage likes and shares such as Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and possibly Facebook as they all offer the means to upload imagery to your followers. If you aim to be successful with your imagery, you need to incorporate your branding for people to resonate and understand what you aim to achieve.
It is a well-known fact that when imagery is paired with information, you will remember around 55% more of what you saw after 3 days. This is simply how our brain is wired and sees words as small images that we interpret. This makes it a little easier to understand why you would remember information with a large image and it’s clear the importance of imagery with any piece of information.
So if there is great importance on imagery and retaining information, it isn’t hard to understand that imagery is important to remember your brand or business. Here are some tips on how you can incorporate branding into your business and branding photography.
Create A Moodboard
The first thing you need to do is gather photos from all over that look similar to your style of photography. These images should be from competitors that you aspire to be like such as from photographers in magazines, lifestyle brands, stock images and anywhere else that you like the images to create a mood board. Go with your heart, but obviously speak to your stakeholders and followers on your mood board to see if it resonates with them, because if it doesn’t, then it isn’t going to work as a brand.
It is important to be critical and aggressive with your selection process. The only imagery that should be kept are the pieces that stand out, but all still integrate with one another. The top photographers will sift through 100% of their photography, but only show 1% of the overall images that harmonise with each other.
Create A Style Guide
Once you have started to find which images are working, you will be able to determine patterns and compile them into a style guide. Having a stylebook for the types of branding imagery that you want, will in turn help you and your team stay consistent. This can sometimes be difficult to do on your own, but hiring a design agency Leeds based or London will guarantee you have some of the best talents to help you create a solid style guide. Having brand guidelines that you want in your business should consider the following:
- What types of content should be in the images – nature/ portrait photography, lifestyle or products?
- What story are the images telling?
- What mood do you want to convey to the viewer?
- How will the images be edited and the reason for it?
- What are the dos and don’ts of your brand guidelines?
Use Only The Best Photos
When incorporating your brand into your photography, it is essential to evaluate each photo in the same way you would with any design and ensure your visual principles are on point and consistent. Consider:
- Lighting: Is the photo too light or dark? Are the images exposing the important elements well, or do they get lost in the dark or light?
- Contrast: Is there enough contrast in the image?
- Colours: Are the colours coordinated and appealing? Does it fit with the rest of the imagery on your site in terms of UI or does it clash and not make sense?
- Composition: Does the image have the right composition that your brand wants to portray? Does the image have depth with backgrounds, or is it flat for products?
- Distractions: Do distractions in the images pull away from what you are trying to achieve? Are there moving objects or misaligned elements that make the photo confusing?
Remain Consistent
This is one of the most important elements of incorporating branding into your photography as it is going to help people identify your work. Once your style guide is complete, you will know what to be doing on every image when you are trying to tell a story or show off a product. The more images you take, the more consistent you will be, and in time, your branding will solidify and be second nature. The whole aim of this is for people to know who you are and your style without any captions.
There are many methods to incorporate branding into your photography, but by following these steps, you will be well on your way to creating a successful brand that is going to resonate with your viewers.