A photography style guide is a set of guidelines that defines how a brand’s visual identity is represented through photography. It ensures that all images used in a brand’s communication are consistent, reinforcing brand recognition and building a strong brand identity.
If you’re a brand that relies heavily on photography, creating a photography style guide is crucial to ensuring that your visual identity is consistent across all mediums. Here are the steps to follow to create a photography style guide for your brand:
- Define your brand’s visual identity: Before you create a photography style guide, it’s important to have a clear understanding of your brand’s visual identity. This includes your brand’s color palette, typography, and other design elements that help to define your brand.
- Determine the types of photography that will be used: Next, you’ll want to determine the types of photography that will be used to represent your brand. This includes deciding on the tone, style, and mood of the images that will be used.
- Establish photo usage guidelines: Once you have an idea of the types of photography that will be used, you’ll want to establish guidelines for how they can be used. This includes defining which types of photos can be used in which contexts (e.g., product shots on your website, lifestyle shots on social media), as well as any restrictions on photo editing.
- Create a shot list: To ensure that your photography is consistent, you can create a shot list that outlines the types of images that you want to capture. This can include specific props, backgrounds, or lighting that should be used.
- Define editing guidelines: Once you’ve established guidelines for the types of photos that can be used, you’ll want to define guidelines for how they should be edited. This includes establishing rules around color correction, cropping, and other editing techniques.
- Collect examples of your brand’s photography: To help establish your brand’s visual identity, it’s helpful to collect examples of your brand’s photography that exemplify the guidelines you’ve created. These examples can be used to show other photographers or designers what your brand’s visual identity looks like in practice.
Creating a photography style guide for your brand is an important step in building a consistent and strong visual identity. By defining your brand’s visual identity, determining the types of photography that will be used, establishing photo usage and editing guidelines, creating a shot list, and collecting examples of your brand’s photography, you can ensure that your brand’s visual identity is consistent across all mediums.