Lessons in Branding Your Photography Business

Last updated on 11/04/2024

Welcome to the Imagen website and blog. If you’ve been with us for a long time, you might have noticed a change in the brand look and feel of everything here at Imagen that happened some time ago.

So let’s talk about that, shall we?

The Rebrand

Now, we know that for the most part, you probably do not care much about companies rebranding either their names, their colors, or their look and feel.

But sometimes, what a brand does is for you, and because of you.

Here at Imagen, we listen to what every customer shares. We get to know each Imagener, what makes them tick or what makes them frustrated. In rebranding from ImagenAI to Imagen, we worked through how Imagen made you feel, and what it did for your life. In some cases, how it completely changed your life or improved your life.

Helping you focus on what you love is at our foundation. This ability to do what you want, when you want, instead of sitting at your computer, staring at a screen, doing the same task over and over again with potential inconsistency.

Out with the old

The original ImagenAI branding was dark, with neon green and blue highlights. It also focused mainly on the AI aspects of what we do, which in a way makes sense.

But at the same time does not portray the values we hold close to our hearts.

That being you, your journey, story, and needs as a photographer with a life outside of photography.

As we grew and began to discover ourselves as a company, and the directions we wanted to go, we shifted into a more minimal logo as you see here.

But this was just a small step in our journey.

In with the new

So step one was to remove AI from the branding. That is why ImagenAI became Imagen.

For those still unsure of how to pronounce Imagen, it’s spoken like Imagine.

We also wanted to change from a dark look to a bright and vibrant brand. This portrays happiness and encouragement.

The solid letter “i” represents Imagen doing the heavy lifting for photographers. Imagine yourself as the dot of the letter “i”, we are holding you up and empowering you to flourish and succeed.

You can also think of the “i” as a stage, where the dot might change depending on the conversation.

Everything we want to do at Imagen is to elevate you (that is also what a stage does). Despite using AI and technology, you will always have control over your final images and hopefully enjoy the process even more.

We also wanted the colors to have meaning and emotion behind them. That is why we went with a green that shows curiosity and adaptability. A pink that portrays the passion behind what we do and offer to you. Finally, blue shows that we believe in technology and its reliability.

The new blog

The new Imagen blog is about you first and foremost, just like everything else we do.

Each article we publish will be about people – their stories, and their workflows.

We want to educate you, but in a way that you can truly connect with. You will see that going forward as new content is published.  If you have a story to share, we want to hear all about it too.

Experiences

A lot of branding and rebranding information has been shared here, and so we want to connect it now to you, and your business.

Sometimes as photographers, we might find ourselves shifting directions. Maybe your business went from only photographing weddings to also photographing fitness events, just like it did for Will Cadena.

Or maybe if you are like me, it went from family portraits and headshots to surprise proposals.

Maybe you are like Charmi Peña who once solely focused on multi-day weddings, and now keeps certain months free from weddings and only takes on simpler headshot and commercial jobs.

Listen to my conversation with Charmi’s about her business and workflows here.

Robert Marcillas’ work has a lot of creamy tones and is quite bohemian, and looking at his website and logo you can see that come across.

Sam Hurd utilizes countless creative techniques, and geometry and is never afraid to try new things. You can see that across his branding, website, logo, and social posts.

If you’re also active on social media (and you should be), make sure to check out our Instagram Analyzer, a powerful new free tool designed by our team to help you grow your photography business by monetizing your Instagram account and showcasing your portfolio the best way possible.

Takeaways

Adapt your brand to whatever organic changes happen to your business. That is a key takeaway here. Because when Imagen first started in 2020, it was all about AI and the new category we created. But then we realized Imagen was more about the people, the community, and how we are impacting the lives of so many photographers.

So shift.

Adapt.

Do what you need to do with your brand, and branding, to promote your business, and portray the emotions and clarity that your clients can and will connect with more.

For additional advice, we recommend reading this article from Honeybook on growing your photography business.