Moodboard

This is a great place to play around with refining your aesthetic. Jump on to Pinterest and make yourself a board, and tweak it until you have a solid set of images that you feel represent the vibe of your brand. Then you can add this board into your style guide to use as a reference.

Colors

Defining image color isn’t too different from the way you would define your brand colors for your other collateral. Think about the tones and shades that you want to see emphasized in your imagery. For example, my feed has an emphasis on white space with pops of earth tones, gold, and cool blues. Because I work with a lot of food photos I try to keep my color guidelines in mind when creating recipes.

Themes

Think about the overall theme of your imagery– is it inspiring? Motivating (think Nike)? Should it make people hungry, or make people curious?

Audience

Think about your target audience, and make a note of who they are! If you’re attracting kid you’ll want a different vibe than if you’re attracting a group of vintage car collectors.

Props

What props should be commonly featured in your brand photography? If you’re a fitness company, fresh fruit and vegetables or workout gear should be frequent props. If you’re a podcaster you’ll want to use office supplies and microphone gear, or items related to the topic you record about.
Want to go more in depth on this?

Check out my free guide or send me an email!