Storytelling Your Brand Through Visuals: 5 Ideas To Create More Impact
Once upon a time there was a brand that was thrown into the world fresh, new and full of potential. “Look at this perfect little brand!” people would say. “It’s growing up so fast!” and “It’s doing such incredible things in the world!”
And just like that, with the beginning of a brand, comes the beginning of a hundred stories and a hundred opportunities to share them, to connect with people from near and far, to grow a business, to create awareness and most importantly spark ideas, conversations and make an impact with what you’re doing.
Focusing on a select number of the stories your brand has to tell can be helpful to streamline your message and tones.
Too many messages and conversations from one brand can make things a little confusing for the audience, so selecting a curated number of brand-aligned (and values aligned) pieces to share through online platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn and blog platforms creates an interesting, well rounded and impactful personality that will educate and connect your audience in bite-size pieces.
Here are five things for your brand to consider identifying, to hone in on, and create visuals around to build out your story.
Visual storytelling suggestion 1: Highlight The Team!
Who is the person or people behind the brand? Photographs showcasing the humans behind a brand are the top must of musts. And especially for brands that are impact-driven as there are often personal reasons why an impact-driven brand exists in the first place. Whether you are a solo entrepreneur, a dozen-person team or a team of hundreds, sharing images of who makes up the team is key to connecting with your audience and bringing them into your world.
How to highlight your team? Here are some suggestions for building relatability with the people behind the brand:
Short q&a’s with your team through portraits
What does a typical day or week look like for different team members?
What is something that your audience might be surprised or interested to know about members of your team and how can you show this in an image?
In the Tacofino kitchen: A day in the life of … (image credit: Maxine Bulloch)
In the Gabi & Jules cafe / bakery: A day in the life of … (image credit: Maxine Bulloch)
Visual storytelling suggestion 2: Show Your Values
Impact-driven brands are built on values. What are yours and why? How can each one be captured in a photo?
Let’s look at an example of a fictitious local sustainable clothing company that has communication as one of its core values. How do you think that the act of communication could be translated via visuals to have people really understand what it means for this company?
Think of how each element of the clothing company can be translated into an image with communication as the centerpiece of the message:
The design team sits down and spitballs ideas about a new product. Together they come up with a new style of pants
The team chats with existing customers, with sustainability experts. Perhaps they use an online video platform to connect and communicate with relevant parties overseas
What are other types of communication involved in the design process? Physically drawing something for others to see? A group presentation? Are there tests done with any of the senses that can be showcased?
The colour or style of the pants might have talking points. Do they link to something in history? To a character from a movie? To a social movement? How can these all be communicated by those who are creating the pants, selling the pants, and buying the pants?
There are so many opportunities to photograph values at every stage of the brand journey. Consider starting a list with brand values and start to add your ideas as to what this would look like to translate your values into visuals for your audience.
One of New Market Funds core values is transparency. I took this image as part of a branding session. The team had an immersive meeting about company culture and values where everybody had the opportunity to create what each value would look like moving forwards. (image credit: Maxine Bulloch)
Visual storytelling suggestion 3: Get Close
Pull out the details!
Include close up shots of hands, workplace props, coffee, plants or whatever pieces make up the essence of your business. Focussing on a detail is a great way to hone in, and emphasize a single thought or story.
Detail for Nada Grocery: a close up photo of the reusable containers that customers bring to fill up with as much or as little as they want.
Detail for Nada Grocery: ice cream by Vancouver favourite, Earnest Ice Cream that is supplied at the store.
Visual storytelling suggestion 4: Spotlight Others
This is along the same line as highlighting your team members - but this time, how can you shine a light on others who are part of your business?
Your business wouldn’t exist without your clients or customers, and showcasing them as a key part of your story builds a visible and relatable community, creates an immediate 2-way conversation between you both, and pays respect to them as your client.
Here are a few prompts you can consider when thinking about how to create photos and stories that showcase them:
Why do you love this client?
Why are you excited to work with them?
What is something you can share from the process of working together?
What difference has the product or service that you provided made for them?
Visual storytelling suggestion 5: Milestones and Goal, Impact Report
Just like a real story from a book, you can create narratives with your business with a beginning, middle, and end using photography and other visuals such as videos, drawings, and infographics.
Consider all the different types of visuals from start to finish that you could create around the following examples:
One of your business goals is to work with 10 female-led impact-driven companies this year
You have a goal to invest in personal development for your team members
Your goal is to expand your team by 5 people
You have a goal of adding 3 new services to your offering
Maxine is a photographer based in Vancouver, Canada, and works with small heart-centered businesses to create joyful, honest images so they can show up on-brand, and aligned with their values.