Have you ever thought about the number of images you see every day; on websites, advertisements, social media, billboards, magazines, and even in your mail? Choosing imagery that sets your brand apart is a crucial step in creating an authentic visual brand identity. Selecting the right brand imagery will make your brand stand out in the minds of your ideal clients, and set you apart from among the jungle of other brand images our minds process online and in print every day.
Brand imagery works much the same as the brand colors you choose, in that the images evoke feelings and emotions within your audience. You want the brand imagery you choose to reflect the values of your brand, and the mission of your business.
Write out your brand values:
If you haven’t already done so, take a moment to write out the values you have for your business, and the feelings you want your audience to have when they view your brand imagery. Do you want your ideal clients to feel trust, empowerment, positivity, motivation? What about indulged, relaxed, healthy, joyful? Do you want them to think of your brand as authentic, reliable, respectful, authoritative, user-friendly?
These are just a few to get you started. Write out your own list to really solidify the values, feelings, and emotions you want to convey to your audience any time they come across your brand.
Now, when you’re searching for brand imagery to use on your website, social media, advertisements, or other marketing materials, keep your list in mind and use it to choose images that authentically fit your brand.
Use your brand values list to create a theme for your imagery:
You’ll find that the brand imagery you choose, based on the list you’ve just created, will generally fit into a category or theme. Utilizing a theme will make it easier for you to choose brand imagery in the future, and keep a consistent, cohesive look and feel across each platform and visual outlet that you use for your business.
Is your brand imagery theme classic and refined? Bold and edgy? Is it simple and clean? Modern? Traditional? Are you using all black and white images for your brand? Or bright photos that pop off the page?
Consistency is key:
The options are only as limited as your imagination. This is why it’s important to narrow down your focus to the list of values and theme you’ve set. As we said at the beginning of our series, 5 easy steps every entrepreneur should follow to build an authentic visual brand identity, consistency is key.
If the overall combination of each piece of brand imagery you choose is haphazardly thrown together in an unthoughtful way, that’s how your audience is going to view your brand. Messy, inconsistent, unorganized, not thought through—I don’t know of anyone who wants their visual brand described using these words. Do you? I didn’t think so.
Brand imagery builds trust and shows the transformation:
Your brand imagery is a chance for you to communicate with your audience, allow them to get to know you and grow to trust your brand, and show them the transformation they can expect when they engage with, use, or purchase your products or services.
Blending your color palette with brand imagery:
It’s also important to make sure that the color palette you’ve selected for your brand blends seamlessly with your brand imagery theme. The same goes for your brand fonts.
For instance, if your brand imagery is black and white, adding a singular color from your color palette, along with a complimentary font, should work nicely.
Have a bold, edgy brand imagery vibe going? Make sure the images you select use, or at least compliment your brand colors, so that they don’t clash with your logo, or contribute to an overall inconsistent feel within your visual brand identity.
The more complimentary your brand imagery, color palette, and fonts are to one another, the more organic and authentic your brand as a whole will feel. The more authentic your brand feels, the more people will naturally gravitate toward it, and hold it in higher esteem as a professional source, and industry leader.
Brand imagery is not just photographs:
While most brand imagery we see around us tends to be photography-based, many brands successfully use illustrations, animations, and even videography to their advantage when choosing imagery to represent them.
Check out these brands for great examples of using visual mediums beyond photography for effective, cohesive brand representation:
Just like with photography-based brand imagery, the way these brands use other visual mediums to represent them marries consistently and cohesively with the rest of their visual branding guidelines. No matter which medium you choose, follow the path of consistency, and you’ll be well on your way to an authentic visual brand identity that your customers can’t wait to engage with and follow for the life of your company.
Helping your customer see themselves in your brand imagery:
While you want to ensure that the brand imagery you choose authentically represents your business, you also want to help your customer see themselves in the images you select.
This goes beyond your audience seeing someone who looks like them in a photograph. Choosing brand imagery that your ideal client can relate to, empathize with, or dream about is important to help them make a deeper, more personal connection with your brand.
This comes down to knowing the pain points of your ideal customer—what makes them tick, what’s important to them in life, what is the ultimate goal they want to achieve through using your products or services? what is the problem they have that your business can help them solve?
You can use the brand imagery you select to answer these questions for them visually. This way, even if they don’t read every word on every digital or printed page you put out for them to see (and let’s face it, there is a very slim margin of people who actually does), they can still get the feeling behind your brand’s message and make a decision as to whether or not they want to take the next step with your business.
Where can I find the right brand imagery?
There are several places across the internet where you can gain access to quality images, illustrations, animations, and videos. Below is a list of just a few of the many resources available to you when selecting the right brand imagery for your business.
You can also hire a professional brand photographer to do a brand photoshoot for you. This will ensure that each one of the images you use for your website and marketing materials is on-brand, reflects your message and style, and provides you with imagery that is uniquely and authentically your own.
I hired Photos by Florentino to do the branding shoot for my website, and he did an amazing job of keeping my brand-imagery authentic to my message, and blending it with the color palette and fonts I was already using. If you’re in the Northeastern part of the United Sates, you should absolutely check him out here.
Image licensing:
A word of caution when using brand imagery that is free and/or not your own: you must ensure that you are using the imagery you choose with the permission of the photographer/artist/creator.
The majority of the websites I list below with free images have clear instructions (either with each image, or on the website itself) as to whether the image is free for commercial use, required attribution, or needs an additional license for different use types.
Please do your due diligence to ensure that any free images are licensed appropriately for the use(s) you intend. When in doubt, ASK or find a new image. This keeps things fair for everyone—it keeps artists paid and creating, and it keeps your business legally protected and branded beautifully. That’s a win for everyone!
Resource Links:
Brand Photographer:
Photos by Florentino—My go-to brand imagery guy! Ready to book? You can email him here.
Paid Brand Imagery:
(Mostly) Free Brand Imagery:
Next week we’ll talk about logo design in part 4 of 5 easy steps every entrepreneur should follow to build an authentic visual brand identity.
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