One of the easiest ways to create consistency accross your branding is to stick to your brand colours. You use them for your print marketing, business cards and website. Why not use them in your photos too?
How can you incorporate your brand colours into a shoot? There’s probably a million ways you could, but I’m going to give you the low down on what has worked time and time again in the imagery I’ve created with my beautiful clients.
Clothing & Accessories. Obviously. Now this doesn’t mean if your brand colour is blue to wear all blue, all the time. Add in little pops of blue: a blue belt, bag or scarf. A hint of blue in your statement earrings. Blue heels. A gorgeous pair of blue sunglasses. There’s no need to go overboard, just subtle hints of your colour peeking through.
Location. In my hometown (Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia) we have an annual festival for professional artists where they get to graffiti entire walls in our city. This means we have hundreds of huge graffiti walls and a lot of them are within walking distance from one another. Many have great colours and there’s something for every brand.
If you’re not so graffitily (that’s a word, I swear it is) blessed, remember there are different colours of brick, paint, timbers, greenery, flowers. There are endless options. When driving around town look for your brand colours in the landscape and architecture. You will be surprised the ideas that pop into your head.
Food. There are lots of ways that food can contain your brand colours. Plates, cups (I’ve seen some incredible takeaway cups), even brightly coloured fruits! Eg if your brand colour is hot pink you could use slices of Dragonfruit on a plate. If your colours are green, a green apple or salad or a pretty bunch of kale treated like a bouquet of flowers.
Which brings me to, flowers. So many gorgeous brand images have flowers in them! With florals available in almost every colour under the sun it’s easy to add a pop of yours with a small posy. You can even add a ribbon or papers in your brand colours to the posy as well.
Stationery. In most Oh Tilly sessions we usually capture some office style imagery (it’s great for social media and behind the scenes posts). This is such a fun way to add in some colours. Pencils, pens, rulers, notebooks etc. There’s a laundry list of office stationery that is available in a rainbow of colours.
Furniture and Decor. Immediately I’m picturing a couple of cushions and a throw in your brand colour. Added to any neutral coloured sofa this would be a great way to get your colour in there. But you could also find an arm chair in your brand colour and drop it right in the middle of the street, or a field and shoot with it. It pays to think outside the box.
A note on best practices. Don’t be the person who does absolutely everything in their brand colour. Unless you can pull off an entirely monochrome set (if you’re keen to do this hit me up) and want a very quirky fun look, this just doesn’t work.
Do be careful of clashing colours.
Remember that less is more!