Authentic Brand Photography

Branding, Creative Direction, Production

The CreativeLive brand is anchored in authenticity and the creator’s journey. I crafted direction for all brand photography based around real creators experiencing the creative journey and life’s moments. I wanted to hit on all the brand attributes and be relatable to our target demographic so we planned each vignette to appeal to a different type of creative in different phases of their artistic journey. The art direction was straightforward. We utilized existing light to help convey the genuine nature of the moment. Nothing was staged or forced including the talent. We casted ourselves, students, and instructors. We photographed real workspaces, actual collaboration sessions, behind the scenes of classes, and moments of inspiration. They showcase creators in progress, tools of the trade, and the in between quiet moments when we come up for air to have a beer or spend time with our loved ones. We utilized the images from these lifestyle shoots throughout all our marketing efforts and on the website. We also took this photo direction to our behind the scenes efforts to gather more in-the-moment images of creators in action.

For this undertaking, I got alignment from leadership around direction look and feel, created a photo brief for a lifestyle shoot to align with the brand refresh, created photo guidelines for photographers and the marketing team for ongoing sessions, curated selects for brand use, trained our in-house photographers, produced the lifestyle brand shoots in Seattle and San Francisco, and was also featured in many of the images (much to my chagrin, but as a full-time employed worker with a photography side-hustle I was truly the target demographic). Together combined with our portrait system and student image curation, we created a beautiful collection for the brand that represented the creative life. Photos by in-house CreativeLive photographers.