Finding Image Styles that Work for Your Brand Part 2

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Over the past few months, we’ve been talking about where to find images and how to find image styles that work for your brand.

In this blog post, I gave you the assignment to put together a totally selfish vision board and to plan a party for your ideal clients. If you have your totally selfish vision board together, go through the steps below to find out how to evaluate the images you collected.

If you haven’t put together your ideal client party plan or pulled together your totally selfish vision board, go do that now and then come back to this post. …Or you can use other Pinterest boards you’ve already created for yourself to go through this process.

Step 1:

Take a big picture look at your vision board and look for the commonalities between all the pieces you’ve chosen.

  • Are there more photos or illustrations?
  • Are the photos crisp with crystal clear focus or softened?
  • Are they colorful, black and white, or tinted?
  • Do the images capture big picture concepts or tiny details?
  • Are the illustrations hand drawn, computer generated, watercolors?

Write down your observations.

An example of my vision board observations: There are more photos than illustrations. The illustrations that are there are very straightforward and simple, nothing elaborate or computer animated looking. The photos are heavily nature oriented. I like detailed photos: pine cones, dandelion, gypsy table runner. But, even when the shots are detail centric, they are still have a very soft feel. Very much like those you would find in a lifestyle magazine, like Country Living or Martha Stewart.

Step 2:

Run your observations through a client party planner lens.

Put yourself back in your ideal client’s shoes. Look at your vision board through some party planner glasses. Which styles of images match up best with how you’d want your ideal clients to feel at the awesome party you’re hosting for them?

Write down your observations.

Step 3:

Now go give this all a test run. Head over to a stock photo site and look for an image for your next blog post.

Type in your search terms, then look for images that match up with your image style observations from Step 1. Once you have several images in mind, look at them with your party planner glasses on. Which image matches up best with your image style observations and would also fit in well at your ideal client party? Give this image a test drive in your next blog post and see how it feels.

Let me know how this approach to finding images for your brand goes!

Posted in Branding, Graphic Design, Photos

12 Comments

  1. Amy Scott on at

    Ooh, this is so fun, Christie! I missed part 1 of this post, so I just went back to read that one, and I’m looking forward to creating that totally selfish vision board.

    Even though I haven’t done those exercises yet, just reading the questions here and imagining what would show up on that board, and what I would create if I were holding a party for my ideal clients, gives me a lot of food for thought.

    Thanks!



    • christie on at

      You’re welcome Amy! I know your vision boards would have an international flair!



  2. Bianca Filoteo on at

    Love how you laid out the steps for this, Christie! Thanks so much. Oh, and your ideal client party planner idea: genius! I will have to give these steps (from Part 1 and 2) a try very soon.



    • christie on at

      You’re welcome Bianca.



  3. Emily on at

    What a fun exercise, Christine! Thank you for laying out the steps so clearly. I am defiantly going to give this a try!



  4. Christine on at

    Definetively going to look at my illustrations with new eyes after this! Thank you so much for sharing and making it so easy!



    • christie on at

      You’re welcome Christine!



  5. Cathy | The Health Coach Group on at

    I love reading your blogs. We always learn lots of valuable information. Being a person that wants everything to be beautiful, your aesthetic take on a vision board is definitely appreciated. Thanks!



  6. Randi Buckley on at

    You are always most generous and thorough, Christie.

    Pinterest was a real boon for me when designing my website. My entire mastermind could pin things they felt were ‘me’ and in alignment with my vision. This was wildy helpful in articulating my brand to my designer. I like your suggestion of giving images test rides on blog posts, too.



    • christie on at

      Love Pinterest! Makes my job as a designer so much more fun!