Most rebrands happen in the same order. The name and logo get signed off, the website gets built, and somebody asks about photography a fortnight before launch. By then the shoot is a rush job, and the new brand goes live wearing the old brand's pictures.
Business rebrand photography is not a different sort of shoot. It is ordinary commercial work with a launch date attached, and that deadline is what changes how you plan it. The questions worth settling early are when to book, which of your existing images can survive the change, and what has to be made from scratch.
Work backwards from the launch date
Your designer needs photographs while the site is being built, not after sign-off. Pages laid out around placeholder images rarely fit the real ones, and retro-fitting them costs more than booking early would have.
So start at the launch date and count backwards through everything that happens after the shutter. Editing, your selects, the build, then sign-off by whoever always has an opinion. Print is the one to watch, because a brochure at the printer cannot be quietly corrected the way a web page can.
If the launch date is already fixed and tight, say so on the first call. Sometimes the honest answer is to shoot only the launch-critical images now and the rest afterwards, which beats one enormous day nobody has time to edit properly.
Audit the pictures you already have
Before commissioning anything, gather every image you currently use in one place. The website, social profiles, the proposal template, the PDF price list, email signatures, and the trade directory nobody has looked at since 2022.
Then sort them into three piles: still works, can be salvaged, died with the old brand. Most businesses are surprised how big the middle pile is.
What kills an image is usually specific and visible. The old logo on a wall, a van, a lanyard or a product label. Staff who have left. A colour that now clashes with the new palette. Premises you have moved out of. Anything with the old strapline set into the frame.
What survives is more than people expect. Clean product photographs on white, close details of materials and process, and portraits made on a plain background often carry straight across, because there is nothing in the frame to date them.
What can be recropped rather than reshot
Plenty of images need reworking rather than remaking. A wide shot with old signage in one corner can often be cropped tighter and still do its job. A set graded for the old look can be re-edited to sit with the new colours, and that alone will pull a mismatched library back together.
Recropping falls down when you need the frame to stay wide. Cropping in loses the space around the subject that a designer needs for a headline, so the image survives as a thumbnail and dies as a banner.
Send us the old files and we will tell you honestly which are worth keeping. We would rather you spent the budget on the twenty photographs you are missing than reshoot forty you already own.
Shooting to the new brand guidelines
Send us the guidelines rather than the mood board someone made six months ago. The useful parts are the colour palette, the type you will overlay, and any rule about how images get cropped or masked.
Colour is where it matters most. We can build backgrounds and steer wardrobe so they sit with the new palette instead of fighting it, and watch what your brand colour does next to skin tones. A palette that looks sharp in a PDF is sometimes unkind on faces, and that is easier to solve with light than in editing afterwards.
Tell us where each image ends up too. If the design system puts a headline across the top-left of every hero, we keep that corner quiet. If your social templates are square and the website is wide, we shoot both rather than crop one badly into the other. Our guide to planning campaign photography goes into that in more detail.
Two things get forgotten. If new signage, badges or packaging appear in frame, get them made before the day or you will be photographing the old brand again. And order new uniforms early, because a shoot booked around kit that has not arrived is a shoot that moves.
Phasing business rebrand photography across the rollout
A full image library is a sizeable commission, and it does not all have to land at once. Decide what launch day genuinely cannot go live without, and shoot that first.
For most businesses that means the homepage image, portraits of whoever a customer actually deals with, and one strong photograph per core service. Recruitment content, product ranges and seasonal work can follow over the next few months, which also spreads the cost across two budget periods.
Give that first set enough range that the site does not look like ten minutes of one afternoon. Different rooms, different distances, a mix of wide and tight. A brand photography shot list built page by page is how you keep that honest, and our headshot sessions handle the team portraits, so nobody needs to arrive knowing how to pose.
We usually do the controlled work at our studio in central Leeds and the operational side on site. Yorkshire light is lovely and entirely unreliable, and the fortnight before a launch is not the week to gamble on it.
The awkward middle, when old and new sit side by side
There is always a spell where both versions of the business are visible at once. A website changes overnight. Nothing else does, so plan for it rather than be embarrassed by it.
Work out the order. The site, your Google listing and the main social channels are what people check, so those go first. Then proposal templates, email signatures and the slide deck. Trade directories, partner sites and old press coverage will lag, and some are not yours to change anyway.
Keep the old files rather than deleting them. You will need them for anything already in print, and for the magazine that comes back wanting the image it ran last year. Just move them somewhere clearly marked so nobody grabs the wrong portrait in a hurry.
Keep a note of where the new images are used, too. A spreadsheet is plenty, and it tells you what is left to swap when someone asks how the rollout is going.
Frequently Asked Questions
How far ahead of a launch should we book the shoot?
Early enough that your designer builds pages around real photographs instead of placeholders. Bring us the launch date on the first call and we will work backwards from it with you, including print deadlines, which are the least forgiving part.
Can we keep any of our existing photographs?
Usually more than you think. Anything without the old logo, old signage, departed staff or a clashing colour in the frame tends to carry over, especially plain-background portraits and product shots.
The logo is the only thing changing. Do we still need new images?
Not necessarily. If the colours and positioning are broadly the same, a regrade and some careful recropping may get you there, and we will say so rather than sell you a shoot you do not need.
Where are you based, and how do we book?
Dock Street Studio is at Unit 9, 30–38 Dock Street, Leeds LS10 1JF, a short walk from Leeds train station and close to Leeds Dock, with onsite parking. Send over your launch date and the pages that need filling, and we will talk it through over a brew.
Plan your rebrand photography in Leeds
If your new brand is signed off and the pictures are still the old ones, send us the launch date and we will tell you what to shoot first.
Book online, email hello@dockstreetstudioleeds.co.uk, or call 0113 4400102.
Written by Mark Wheelwright
Commercial photographer & studio owner, Leeds | ISO Photographic Ltd
Dock Street Studio, Unit 9, 30–38 Dock Street, Leeds LS10 1JF
18+ years' experience | 900+ projects | 300+ five-star reviews | 1M+ shutter count
dockstreetstudioleeds.co.uk
Shot, written and built by the Dock Street team
Every guide on this blog comes from the team at Dock Street Studio — Mark behind the camera with 18+ years' experience, Nicole on styling and lighting, Beya on video and bookings and Austin keeping the site fast and findable. If you'd rather have us do it than read about it, book a session or explore our photography services in Leeds.