Do you get frustrated when thinking ‘How do I brand myself as a photographer?”

It’s is a super hard thing to do, particularly when you are starting out with your own photography business, but it is something that is worth the time and the effort because it makes a big difference.

 

WHY IS BRANDING SO IMPORTANT FOR A PHOTOGRAPHER?

Why, you may ask, is it so important to have a clear visual identity/brand as a photographer?  Well, it’s all about the first point of contact. These days it’s becoming far common for the first point of contact to be on Instagram for many photographers starting out, but in terms of network and spreading awareness of your business, having a strong and clear visual identity shows potential clients that you are serious about your work, and therefore take your business seriously.

The most important reason to brand yourself is that it builds trust between you and your clients. Once you have established a foundation of trust, recognition will follow and clients will then willingly refer you to new potential opportunities or new clients.

Once your clients begin to trust you, they’ll never forget what you have to offer. Out of building trust comes recognition. Odds are if a client trusts you, then they won’t hesitate to refer their contacts to you. Over time, this evolves into a strong relationship, which in return turns your clients into loyal customers.

 

HOW DO I BRAND MYSELF AS A PHOTOGRAPHER?

In my previous life as a graphic designer, it was ingrained in my brain that a strong visual identity, a strong visual mark was imperative in setting the tone for business or an individual’s brand. Brand perception begins at a logo. Its design is an instant sign of what kind of image creator you are.

So how do I figure out why kind of identity suits my photography?

The first most important thing is to establish what kind of style your photography has come up with 5-10 adjectives on how your photography makes you feel. If you find it a little hard, go back through some of the comments on your most engaged with Instagram posts and note down what the main comments have been; make note of the commenters’ tone and the adjectives they have used too.

Once you have your set of adjectives, imagine your brand is a person, someone who is a creating of all those adjectives on your list.

You will start to get an idea of whether your branding identity for your photography is romantic, traditional, modern or adventurous etc.
If you find this hard, go back and look through all your images again on your Instagram feed and look for a recurring theme(s).

 

WHAT TYPOGRAPHIC STYLE FITS MY PHOTOGRAPHIC STYLE?

Now that you have established a theme and a set of key adjectives that describe your photography brand, it is easier to come up with a visual identity, a logo.

 

‘ROMANTIC’ PHOTOGRAPHY

If you feel that your photography style is inherently romantic, whimsical and more fun in style, typefaces (fancy designer-speak for fonts 😜) such as handwritten or script styles are probably going to embue the feeling of your imagery.

‘TRADITIONAL’ PHOTOGRAPHY

If your photographic style lends itself more to a traditional landscape or lifestyle kind of vibe, tradition serif typefaces are more suited to your photography. My personal faves are Baskerville, Garamond, Bodoni, Didot, Mrs Eaves, but Google Fonts have a great range of serif fonts that you can use and will also work on your website! (Pretty important!)

 

‘MODERN’ PHOTOGRAPHY

If your photographic style lends itself more clean and crisp interiors, modern architecture, product photography, or corporate environments, modern typefaces such as sans serif typefaces are more suited to your photography. Typefaces such as Gotham, Avenir, Futura or Helvetica. But Google Fonts also have a good selection too, such as Open Sans, Roboto, Lato & Source Sans Pro.

 

‘ADVENTUROUS’ PHOTOGRAPHY

Is your photographic style more brave, at the cutting edge (technically), do you travel near and far, to remote and rugged corners of the earth? Then both handwritten and more modern sans-serif style typefaces are more suited to your photography. Quite often a combination of the two really works with adventure style photography brands.

 

HOW TO PICK THE TYPEFACE FOR MY PHOTOGRAPHIC STYLE?

Armed with your now defined photographic style, and your typographic style to match, trial and error is the best way to see which works best. And the best way to do this is to look at each design and ask yourself the following three questions:

1. Is this a design that represents my work and also appeals to the right people I would like to seek out as customers and clients?
2. Is this the kind of design that builds trust with potential customers?
3. Is this a design that could work with the expansion of my business, as my photographic repertoire expands over time.

In part 2 of this post, I’ll go into detail of my own photographic brand and show you my process (and my mistakes!). But in the meantime, I want to give you a free cheat sheet for how to find your visual identity as a photographer. Download it and run through it to find your very own!

 

Enjoy!

 

 

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