When creating their business or their brand, photographers fall into 2 major categories: Using their own name, usually followed by “Photography”, and creating a completely different name. When I first started back in college, I made the decision to create a name. After all, “Derrald Farnsworth-Livingston Photography” is a mouthful. As a result, I decided to brainstorm some names that might work well for a general photography business. I didn’t want to confine myself to a specific genre, but I wanted something that would fit in well with the theme. During this process, I was spending a lot of time in the darkroom (yes, chemicals and paper and film – ah the days) turning my enlarger off and on, off an on to expose the paper, it occurred to me. The word “light” had to be in the title as light is really the bare essential of photography. As I continued with this line of thought, I came to the conclusion that a photograph is really the end result of a journey that light takes – thus “Journey of Light”. I choose this because I thought it was simple and easy to remember, easier to remember than my name. Interestingly, my experience has proven the opposite, my name seems easier to remember to those that have actually met me and my website analysis reports also show that there are more hits on “Farnsworth-Livingston” than “Journey of Light”. This made me question if I should change my brand of 10 years. Ultimately, I determined, since the end result of both queries end up on my website, I shouldn’t really care. “Journey of Light” will continue to be my company name and my brand.
In general, what has my experience shown? That it probably does not matter what your name is, as long as it is consistent and fairly unique, you should be ok. Bill Smith Photography, for instance, might have a problem, but I think if you separate yourself with enough unique identifiers – i.e. Bill Smith Natural Light Images, the name will stand.
Having a name, however, is not the end to building a strong brand. Consistency is the key to generating brand recognition. Without consistency, for instance, every time someone looks at your web site with 15 different fonts, three different image templates, different colors on each page, and two different names, it adds to the noise that defines what your business does or can do for a prospect. By keeping everything the same throughout the experience, the visitor will find that things are orderly, neat, easy to read, and thus easy to remember. In the past, I’ve dealt with marketing companies on branding businesses. During this process the marketing company tries to come up with an official set of items that will define the company going forward. These items include: fonts, colors, logo, letterhead, marketing materials, etc. Marketing companies are usually very good at picking colors and fonts that will work well with the theme of the business. Banks, for instance, usually want to exude a sense of stability, corporation, and success. Fonts that usually fit into this theme are serif fonts, such as Times New Roman. Colors are usually neutrals, like dark blue or grays. Day Care facilities, on the other hand, want to show a sense of childlike fun. Fonts that fit into this theme are san-serif fonts, such as Comic Sans, the colors are bright and pastel – yellows, pinks, cyans, etc.
Should you hire a marketing company to help define your branding image? While I think that this is a good idea for many companies, the stark reality is that photographers, especially those just starting out, don’t have the money to invest. Additionally, photographers are a creative bunch and can generate some great ideas on their own. So, what do I recommend? Go out and read some literature, website, etc. on branding and marketing and decided what image you want to portray in your business. If you photograph headshots for corporation, for instance, stay away from the fun san-serif fonts and pastel pinks. Do you photograph children? Then go with the crazy Comic Sans type fonts and add heavy doses of teal and yellow! The biggest thing to remember is consistancy. Blog, website, Facebook, mailers, signs - they all need to encorporate your chosen font and colors. If you’re not sure, print up a card with the colors and fonts and keep it in front of you for a couple of weeks. Let it simmer inside your mind and see if you still like it after some time. Like a good image, does your fondness for it increase or do you end up deleting it after a few days?
The last thing I want to touch on is logos. I have found that about 30-40% (my general feeling, I have no statistics to back this up) of photographers have a logo. The other 60-70% of photographers simply use their name (in a consistent font). For years I would work on a logo, hate it, ditch it. Then I would start over, work on a logo, hate it, ditch it. Repeat. About 7 years ago I started using “Journey of Light Photography” in Copperplate Gothic font on everything. This became my defacto logo. Copperplate Gothic, incidentally, was my official font. A stately font which was easy to read and worked well on all browsers, computer types, and looked good on signs. I consistently used this font, coupled with Verdana for normal text on everything I did. I felt like I wanted a logo, but I had a compelling feeling that I wanted to design it so it was completely mine.
For my the logo I knew I wanted the following:
- Readability of my name (I think this is a must for everyone)
- A visual reference to “light” (To pull through the consistancy in my brand name)
- A reference to something in “nature” – but not something that would place me in any one geographic location
- Something that would look good on wide variety of background colors, especially black and white
- Colors that weren’t too “pastel-ly” and not too “corporate” – something that could cross venues
Five things and a pretty simple list, right? I think the biggest hold ups came from numbers 2 and 3. Number 2, simply because everytime I tryed to portray “light” in a logo, it never felt “right”. Number 3, because I photograph the midwest and great plains extensively, I wanted something from nature that could found there, but I didn’t wanted something fairly general so that it could be found in many places. Additionally, as I move into other aspects of photography – architecture and portraiture, I wanted something that would still work in those arenas. I’ve incorporated it into every aspect of my marketing – from my website, to my mailers, to my store, to my blog with the new font – Trajan Pro. Last weekend, I finished this process (exhibited at the top of this post).
Do I think a logo is necessary? Probably not, but I do think it helps those that remember things visually better. If someone sees my logo at an art fair and then visits my website, they’ll know they’re in the right place. Will it increase my revenues? Maybe on repeat business, we’ll see. The most important activity I recommend regarding logos is to create a list of “musts” and “likes” as I did above to help shape your vision into something workable, artistic, and of course, consistent.
