Creating new brand images for Labbrand Shanghai
Labbrand, a global leading brand consultancy, reveals its new brand identity including refreshed brand signature, along with the launch of a new website experience. These changes come at the time when the company is celebrating its 15th anniversary and stepping into the new era, bringing inclusive, state-of-the-art brand consulting services to the world.
I am extremely happy to participate in this project and using my craft to delivery these new sets of visual images. The new visual style of Labbrand is the expression of the modern identity of the company.
In this article, I will explain how we map out our plan from the beginning and provide a few tips for your future corporate shooting ideas.
During our first meeting, we outlined the purposed of images, as well as on what the desired outcome of the shoot is. By developing a clear vision of the contexts of the photos, we mainly will use those images on their official website, social media and pitching proposals. So it clearly would be good to have formal headshot of each employee, some powerful management team photos and combine with storytelling images like teamworking images to showcase the dynamic working environments.
The next step is scouting the location. Indoors corporate portraiture can be a challenging experience, especially when the task is to photograph people in their work environments. Most offices have white walls, dim lights or low ceiling kind old type of office, we need to work on the angles of shooting to avoided or beautify the environments by using the lighting and a bit of styling in the offices.
I always love to meet onset to find the best places to stage the scenes and create a schedule for our shoot days.
Things need to be taking into consideration:
- Which office space is available and for how long during the shooting day?
- How many people we will have for the shooting, what's the best time for everyone show up and do a session
- For office environments, ask if the outside scenery should be included in the photograph.
- And more depends on one the office and requirements
After the office scouting, I will start to draft a rough plan of each shooting set and what should be prepared based on the vision.
As many companies use their real people to reveal more of the company culture, personality and authenticity in the contents, it’s also a great idea to be able to meet onsite to talk with the employees and layout the groups that will best illustrate the vision we are going for.
Meanwhile, I also share some information that can be passed along to the employees and leadership team that will be featured in the photos, offering some tips on how to prepare themselves for the day. The prep material includes advice on what to wear, wardrobe patterns to avoid and hair/make-up tips.
It does take a lot of prep works before we have a shooting, but it all worth the efforts! The more details you plan, the more smooth the shooting day will be. No one will rush out of time or clueless what's next.
Time for start shooting when everyone on the same page. For each employee sets, we designed two sets. One is with full white background for most formal use. The other one based on branding's unique style, we have everyone in front of a black backdrop to have magician feelings.
There is really no magic formula for setting up the lights and everybody does it differently.
We will arrive first in the office with equipment and get ready.
I definitely have some fun time for the lighting tests before have everyone come up for the shooting.
Don't worry too much about the posing or expression. I will guide everyone and prepare some basic prints out for smoothing some nervous.
I often think my clients are not as clients but as a creator like me, even like a partner. We both have the vision and we will execute it together. I like being involved in the process so I can let you know how your ideas or our collectives ideas translates through photography.
Since Labbrand is a global brand consultancy agency, to keep its worldwide employees able to achieve the same portrait result in Shanghai. I created a lighting guide for other photographers as a reference.
We keep our communication open and let the idea with feedback flow freely in the whole process to create an awesome experience from start to finish. The final product truly reflects the ideals and vision that truly represent the best of Labbrand.
Thank you, everyone, who involved in this!
Let's capture more smiles and reveal your business at different angles!