Dear Photographer – Maybe you’ve been there – walking onto set on shoot day and the clothes *haven’t* been decided on yet.

There’s a pile somewhere (still in a suitcase, fold lines *quite* prevalent) and a client completely unsure what to choose. “I brought all my options, what do you think?”

Suddenly, gone is the first hour of shooting time, lost to making decisions that you had thought/hoped? were already made.

There are a lot of factors to styling for a team brand shoot, but coordinating multiple looks at the same time is maybe the most complicated. But, it can be distilled down to a framework that clarifies and streamlines the decision process –

First – define what sort of team you’re working with. Is this a partnership / co-founders, or, is this a brand with a true lead / CEO, and their team. This post dove a bit into a partner shoot, and I’ll have more resources on partner shoots coming soon. In this post, the framework I’m walking you through here is for the latter – styling for a CEO and their team.

If you’re styling for a partnership, the looks are curated in conjunction with each other. If you’re styling for a CEO + a team, the lead looks are curated first, and the team looks are planned around the lead.

Simplified, here’s what the process looks like –

1. Define the team
2. Create the color palette, inspiration, and style board for the shoot
3. Curate the lead looks – the Uniform, the Connection, and the Inspiration
4. Use the lead looks to define a color palette and inspo board for the team looks
5. Build in additional lead looks as needed
6. Build team looks
7. Match looks for shoot day

Once we’ve defined the team, I dive into research. I want to know the brand inside and out, understand who they are, their services or product, personality, all of it. And then I need to understand what the shoot goals are – what are we shooting for, where are we shooting, etc. All of that research leads to setting the the color palette, and the general mood/style of the shoot – in order to speak to the target audience they are using the shoot to communicate with.

Styling for a brand shoot is about finding the merging point of your style, with what your target audience needs to see in order to trust you.

Then I create the foundation of the lead looks. There are 3 main looks, or categories of looks, that I ensure are in every brand shoot – the uniform, the connection, and the inspiration. These looks define the shoot, and the team looks are coordinated to them. They can’t compete with them, but they have to fit next to them.

Typically, for team looks, I’m sourcing the lead looks and the team is sourcing theirs, so I will take the lead looks, an adjusted color palette that creates a shopping boundary for the team, and an inspiration board, along with detailed notes that list out how many looks and what genre they need to be, and ask the team to submit looks to me for approval. (Because I want the looks nailed prior to shoot day, not on shoot day!)

Sometimes there are a couple rounds of edits during the approval process, but providing a color palette, a style board, showing them what the lead will be wearing, and creating a list of what I’d like them to have (i.e. 3 looks, 1 professional vibe, consisting of dark neutrals, 1 professional vibe made of light neutrals, and 1 casual and relaxed, built around jeans) makes the process so much easier.

Once I’ve added in any additional lead looks, and have approved team looks, they get matched up. In the Style Guide, for every lead look, I’ll go in and mark which team looks pair, so that shoot day is as simplified and streamlined as possible.