Rarely do I get the opportunity to work with a photographer on multiple projects. But when LA-based photographer John Davis wanted to ramp up his marketing efforts, I was all-in! Step one was putting together an eye-catching emailer. Step two was constructing an equally-attention-grabbing Print Promo. Throw in a treatment, which we’ll also discuss today, and we had a trifecta of client outreach.
In the past, my marketing plan included a combination of targeted emailers and print promos, but my current materials were in need of a major refresh. The best path forward for my business wasn’t initially clear but I knew I had to step up my marketing and I knew Wonderful Machine could help me.
I wanted to get a sense of John’s visual identity, a term that refers to the typeface, colors, and design assets that support your business and give structure and personality to your marketing materials. I quickly found that John is a sophisticated photographer with a brand that pays tribute to the youthfulness and creativity of his imagery and subject matter. With a vibrant yellow background and hot pink accents, he — unlike many others — has turned himself into a brand.
John and I first tackled the emailers. For these newsletters, I focused on the pictures and the pink! Wanting to highlight his educational work, I found a solid mix of horizontal and vertical images to compile into four options.
John liked the fourth option the best but wanted to see more options for the color blocks in the background. We used new photos with color blocks that accented the images as well as yellow blocks, the latter of which would match his brand’s aesthetic.
Both John and I enjoyed how the different color added a tailored look to each emailer. It also lets him customize each newsletter, giving each prospect-directed announcement a unique visual element.
The great thing about working with Wonderful Machine was that they were already familiar with my work and understood my audience. Even before our first call, Lindsay had visited my newly-designed website to get a feel for my new work so we could hit the ground running. After our first call I sent over the images and she had the first version finished within a week. I then made a couple minor layout tweak suggestions and we were done!
The next step was to assemble the emailer in Mailchimp. Once this design was approved, I provided a template in Photoshop and Indesign along with written instructions for John to be fully self-sufficient as he creates and customizes all future emailers!
During our time on the Print Promo, John was also working with our executive producer, Craig Oppenheimer, on an estimate for a sports & fitness client. Knowing the ins and outs of his brand, I was ready to help when I was invited to create a treatment. A treatment is an opportunity to share your photography and process behind with clients, so it was important to find the balance between text and imagery. John thought of what he wanted to say as I jumped into Keynote and created a sophisticated and clean template to display the info.
The front page was a full bleed with a simple image. The photo had enough negative space to include John’s logo, the client’s name and logo, and details about the campaign.
The interior pages resided on a yellow background. The second slide introduced John with his headshot and bio and the third gave details about this project. Because I didn’t have the copy from John, I just used “Lorem Ipsum,” which is Latin-based verbiage that designers use as placeholder text. It worked great to show John where his text would go.
The introduction slides were pretty simple — just text pages. So, the goal for the next page was to grab the reader’s attention as they dove into the images. I made another full-bleed page bookmarking John’s portfolio. This was followed by two pages of grid-formation example photos; the first grid focusing on his Lifestyle photos, the second on his sports lifestyle pics. I ended this segment with another full-bleed bookmark page, which moved the viewer to more information pages.
These info slides had more details about John’s approach to this upcoming shoot, including his shot list and COVID-19 protocol. The final info page was for Craig to add the estimate he created for John’s shoot. I ended the treatment with a simple thank you page, complete with John’s logo and contact info.
Check back in next week to see how John’s Print Promo turned out!
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