Promote your start-up with a lookbook - The Independent Collective

A start-up company needs to be out in the public eye as soon as possible. A good website is one way to do this, and a strong social media presence can help too. But have you considered making a lookbook?

Designers and models have used lookbooks for years, which is a testament to their strength as an advertising medium. So much so that the lookbook is beginning to impact other sectors. But what is a lookbook?

A lookbook is a collection of powerful images to showcase the spectrum of your range of products or services in a streamlined fashion.

Need a place to start? Read on, because we’re here with the expert advice of digital printing UK company, Precision Printing. Together, we’ll guide you through how to make a great lookbook for your company.

Requirements

Decide what you want your lookbook to focus on. This is especially important if you have limited funds, as waste will lose you money. The essential lookbook elements are:

Cover page.
Sensible navigation.
High-quality images.
Enticing product/service descriptions.
Key brand details (including contact information and social media addresses).

Step one: cover page

First impressions are always important, so make sure you get your cover page perfect. The objective of the front cover is to grab attention, which means you need to think: attractive image, excellent use of colour, and an appealing title to compel the reader to want to know more. Cover pages typically detail the month and year and, if it’s not in the title, you need to have your brand name and logo somewhere here, too.

Step two: navigation

You may not have considered this, but your lookbook’s page order can change everything. You want to create a good experience for your potential customer when they’re reading your lookbook, and making sure it flows without interruption is essential.

You’ll want to put all your related goods and services together, to make it easier for your reader to locate the items they are curious about. If you offer both goods and services, keep these separate, and try to section off connected articles into clear categories to deliver consistency and avoid making your lookbook appear disjointed.

Step three: Imagery

You’ll want to focus on the quality of the images in your lookbook. Make sure the photos you put into your lookbook are professionally-taken and of the highest quality, which means considering props, lighting, colour, setting, and image resolution for each shot. If this is one of your first print marketing campaigns, you don’t want any mistakes.

Be mindful that whitespace can be used as effectively as images. Not every image needs to run border to border and whitespace is a modern photography technique used to create a focus point and highlight a particular part of the page — use it sparingly.

It’s best to get your first lookbook out on a powerful foot with an investment in professional photography for it. However, you can do these yourself if you prefer, but just remember to check that you have exclusive rights for everything you include if they aren’t all original images.

Step four: product descriptions

Though lookbooks are primarily an image-based material, the copy is still important to inform the reader. Essentially, a lookbook will feature product/service descriptions and — if you’re a start-up — perhaps a brief brand description so everyone knows what you’re about.

Here, we provide a few tips for writing in a lookbook. Quality lookbook copy must be:

Informative: tell your readers what they need to know.
Enticing: make the reader want to buy from you.
Interesting: engage with the reader.
Concise: don’t overstuff it with words.

Your content is a potential connection to your customer. Use professional language to convey your reliability, but try and adopt a chatty tone to come across as approachable. Try to avoid using very long words and sentences — these sound stuffy and clumsy — and keep your product descriptions between 30 and 60 words in length to avoid taking focus from your lookbook’s images.

Step five: details

Last but not least, your contact information should be on the back of your lookbook. If you’re a new company on the scene, you’re going to have to shout about where new customers can get in touch with you. Make sure you include:

Phone number.
Email address.
Shop address.
Social media addresses.

Printing progress

With the design cemented, you now need to print it! Have a chat to your printing specialist about the type of paper stock and finishes that might look good and ask to see a few samples to get a better idea. The worst scenario would be to put so much time, money and effort into designing the perfect lookbook, only to have it ruined by opting for a cheap paper or poor finish.

Be sure to check your lookbook over for any errors before sending it to the printers. Proofread your copy, scan photos for anomalies and verify product names and prices. After its printed, get your lookbook out to as many potential customers as you can!

A lookbook is a strong way to advertise your company in an appealing way. Make the most of this route and create a stunning lookbook to represent your brand!