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Rachel Waters is a Louisville, Kentucky-based photographer specializing in lifestyle, brand narrative, healthcare, and portraiture. Before diving into our design project, Rachel initially worked with our Senior Producer Bryan Sheffield on an estimate for a potential project. He suggested that she use our design services to create a Treatment Template. Rachel could then use the template for the project that they were pitching. However, I designed it in such a way that she could use it for other projects in the future too.
Since Rachel needed to send the treatment along with the estimate that they were working on, they needed a very quick turnaround on this project. They approached me with a timeline of two days to complete the treatment template. After I confirmed my availability, work began immediately with Rachel sending me her logo as it was the main inspiration for the design. We also discussed her general style and we decided on using Canva as the design platform.
A treatment is a presentation deck (that’s usually attached to the estimate) that describes how the photographer would approach a particular project. While the estimate describes how much a project will cost, the treatment conveys the photographer’s capabilities, experience, and perhaps most importantly the photographer’s enthusiasm for the project at hand. A professionally designed pitch deck goes a long way toward showing that you’re serious about your photography and the right person for the job.
Our Treatment Template includes layouts for all the different pages that a photographer might need to describe their approach for any project, including Approach & Style, Lighting, Casting, Locations, Styling (Set & Prop, Hair/Makeup, and Wardrobe), Production (Crew and Workflow), and Post Production (Retouching and Deliverables). Working with the template makes it easy to just swap in copy and images for each new project (while some copy and images may be evergreen).
Bryan and Rachel had already discussed what aspects/pages they wanted to include in the template for this specific client. So, instead of creating a couple of generic pages to accommodate any requirements, I was able to tailor the template to these specific pages.
Rachel sent me her logo but didn’t have much branding beyond that. However, she was clear that she wanted something minimalist using neutral colors/tones (such as black, white, and gray). I used her font and logo for inspiration and as a starting point.
For option 1, I used a lightened or watermark version of her logo for the background in parts of the pages. Option 2 was clean and simpler, alternating the background colors between white and gray, her logo placed on the bottom right corner, and titles overlaying the images. Also, the images in this option were slightly bigger. Option 3 had a white background and integrated the curve in her logo with the photo grids.
I am leaning more towards option 3. I really like the inspiration of utilizing the curved edge from my logo for the photo blocks. I think that is a clever way to tie in my branding while still feeling minimal.
After her feedback, for the second round of drafts, I combined option 1 and option 3 into option 4, which ended up being her final choice. I used a lightened version of her logo as a background (taken from option 1) and the curve of her logo for the image grids (taken from option 3). I also created another option (option 5) for round 2 that incorporated her logo as a watermark over the images instead of cropping the image. Rachel loved option 4 and there were no last-minute revisions needed.
I really like option 4. It has become more complex, but with a minimal tone and I’m really digging it.
We all understood that we had a tight turnaround for this project. Rachel was really easy to work with and responsive, which helped get the template done in time. In the end, we were all very happy with the outcome of the project and Rachel intends to use the template for future projects as part of her overall branding and marketing.
Further Reading
Expert Advice: Going Viral on Social Media
Expert Advice: Email Campaign Analytics