Stand Out In Front of The Creative Crowd
Written by Peter Berberian, AXS Director of Brand Development
“Definition of Branding: The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products.
What exactly does "branding” mean? Simply put, your brand is your promise to your customer. It tells them what they can expect from your products and services, and it differentiates your offering from that of your competitors. Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be.“ Entrepreneur.com
Most photographers think of branding as the design of your logo or type on a website but it goes way beyond that. I sat down with a few of my photo editor friends for a conversation. We not only talked about logos and promos, we talked about the look and feel of the photography. Think about a Terry Richardson image, now think about a Mario Testino photograph. Both fashion, yet extremely different. Different sides of the same coin. You most likely wouldn’t mistake one for the other.
Guess what? That’s branding.
Libby Petersen, feature editor at Rangefinder Magazine; "few photographers stick in my mind more than Chellise Michael and Mike Busse. They’re a husband and wife team out of Brooklyn and a breath of fresh air, creatively and personally. Always up for collaborating (and they’re absolute aces at communicating and following up), they have this contagious zest for life and curiosity to walk down new, surprising avenues of creativity, playing around with the limits of digital and film. They’ve even established a separate arena called Meet the Michaels for personal work—they’re always feeding it, always trying new things.”
For me, both the personal work and professional work look similar, muted with a limited color palette. Looking and feeling like their brand.
James Wojick is the photographer in Amy Wolff’s head. He does really off beat stuff like putting his name on tuna cans and having his own oyster farm.
Photographs of the oysters are made into postcards and well, you get the picture. These types of promos make me angry, because they are so good.
For Deborah Dragon, formerly deputy photo editor of a little magazine called Rolling Stone; Matt Maturin is the artist that sticks with her the most. He reads the story about the subject he is photographing and comes with his own ideas, yet is still open to outside ideas and starting points from the photo editor. Lots of photo illustration guys don’t shoot their own photos, Matt does. Below is this image (I was going to say picture, but it’s far beyond it) of Chuck Palahniuk. Look closely for the fine detail of the illustration. He’s a photographer, illustrator and also combines the two. It’s his eye for detail that makes him rise to the top.
I asked James Pomerantz, freelance photo editor and photographer, (via email) and this is what he says:
“When I was working for the New Yorker, Emiliano Granado; This one time, with very short notice and a very young baby at home, Emiliano dropped everything, flew to Mexico with an open return date, arranged his own mule and rode into the jungle to wait for a cave explorer to surface.”
“Another time, Emiliano spent a day documenting New Yorker writer Gary Shteyngart’s day wearing Google Glasses “
“Emiliano went above and beyond to come back with great photos. Both times, and every other, he did it without a single complaint. He plays well with others and is talented both in the studio and on the road. A rarity, he’s capable of producing both extremely heartfelt, emotional work and lighthearted, fun photography too. ”
What James is talking about is the way a photographer presents themselves. A lot of what goes into getting hired is the confidence the artist exudes at the creative meeting. Good work is just as important as you looking and acting like you can complete the job.
Oh yeah, a great logo is pretty good too.
If you want to check out more about me, here is an interview I did with the Photo Brigade podcast. If you get bored, fast forward to the end. I really get going.
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