The fashion world requires the use of different tools and resources to highlight the style and products of a brand.
One of those ways is creating and spreading a lookbook that reflects your brand characteristics.
Each Lookbook is a window to creativity and good taste, a symphony of colors, textures, and silhouettes that inspires you to find your style. From elegant outfits for special occasions to casual and modern day-to-day ensembles, a Lookbook offers you a wide range of ideas to elevate people’s looks and make them feel more comfortable and unique.
In this brief guide, we will help you boost your fashion content to reach more users effectively.
What is a lookbook?
A lookbook is content that seeks to reflect the essence of a brand, establishing certain aesthetics, trends, and style.
We differentiate it from a catalog since the purpose of the latter is specifically to detail the products themselves to sell them, without any artistic or style purposes.
Imagine a personalized fashion magazine where every page is a masterpiece of style. A Lookbook is much more than just a collection of images; it is a captivating story that unfolds before your eyes, a visual narrative that invites you to experience a seamless fusion of garments, accessories, and attitude.
Who uses lookbooks and what for?
Lookbooks are usually very useful for people who are looking to promote their business or personal brand, such as designers, stylists, and clothing brands.
There are a few things you need to pay special attention to when starting to create your content. First of all, when creating a stylebook, it is necessary to establish its objective, for example, what we want to achieve with this content, such as increasing sales, expanding the brand or becoming known, reaching a specific audience, positioning the business, etc.
Determine the style and theme, by choosing a style and theme that reflects the essence of your collection or your style. This may include the use of colors, patterns, visual elements, and an overall aesthetic that aligns with your vision.
Select the outfits you want to include in your lookbook. Consider consistency and variety in terms of styles, colors, and types of garments. Make sure the garments selected are representative of your collection or your personal/brand style.
Plan the photo shoot, you need to coordinate the logistical details of the photo shoot, such as the necessary equipment, schedule, permits (if necessary), production equipment, and the spaces to be used, regarding the aesthetics you want to achieve. Make sure you have a photographer and a make-up and styling team if necessary.
Finally, select the best images you’ve got from the session. Review all the photos taken and select the best images that effectively represent your collection or your personal style. Pay attention to image quality, lighting, and composition, leaving out content that you feel does not represent the aesthetic you are looking for.
Once we have clarified who will use it and what for, the style and looks, and the production, we can start with the design of our lookbook. In case you’re not sure which designs to use or if you’re not comfortable designing, there are many lookbook templates you can use as a guide to starting with your creation, and most of them you can find on the internet, for example, you could start with Canva that’s easy to use and pretty user friendly.
What to consider when designing my lookbook?
Once you have decided all of the details you want to transmit and get by designing your lookbook, you’ll have to make sure you consider some important steps.
Define your pallet of colors and make sure to find a direct element, where the whole content will spin around, this is not mandatory of course, but it’ll help you to stick with the same style and aesthetic on the flipbook. It coils be a color, an item, a texture, etc.
The Cover
The first encounter with the content and the immediate impression is what will determine whether the consumer will decide to move forward or not with the content.
First, be sure to add a title that reflects the essence of the products to be featured, for example, the name of the collection "Vintage session" "Winter euphoria" or in this case “New Style”.
The photo on the cover should reflect a bit of what the viewer will find while checking the content, make sure to follow the same aesthetic and colors, and sometimes you can set a product/item that you want to highlight among others.
Differentiate your content with a number or date. You can include this on your title by adding the year of the photo shoot or with a number, this will contribute to your storytelling and the development of your brand through the years.
Photographs
The photo shoots should highlight the essence of the brand, but at the same time, you should pay special attention to the quality of the photographs, allowing you to reflect the textures, contrasts, and colors in the most natural way possible, this way your content will acquire a more elegant style and a real reflection of the products.
Something important to take into consideration when deciding the spaces where the session will take place is to have in mind what we want to convey to the public with our styles.
The photos in a lookbook showcase the details and unique features of each garment. Close-up shots and strategic angles help highlight the cuts, textures, prints, and finishes of the garments, helping viewers fully appreciate the workmanship and quality behind each design. Highlighting the quality of your products will increase the confidence of your customers in your content.
We recommend using backgrounds that do not obscure the garments to be shown, they can be natural environments, studios with plain or simple backgrounds, monochromatic cities, or simple decorative spaces, the main thing is that the background does not take away the prominence of the look we want to present.
Sooming up, photos in a lookbook is key to transmitting a story and style of a fashion brand. Through captivating images, you can convey the brand's identity, show the details of the garments, inspire consumers, and generate positive emotions that foster engagement and connection with the brand.
Add interactions
The consumer experience will depend on how innovative and effective the content you have created is.
Add relevant elements that maintain the style of the content, for example, backstage videos of the sessions, fashion shows, music, links to the main website or social networks, pop-ups or zoom-ups to highlight certain information such as textures, quality or weaves in the fabrics and product features.
If you allow your readers to access your content more easily, like in the picture by adding your social media, it will increase the engagement and accessibility of your brand. But you can also play with other interactions like links to other content, videos, or gif to show how the fabric moves the material, a fashion parade, another aesthetic you want to highlight, or even to another lookbook you might have.
Impulse your style
Differentiating your content from the rest will help you to insert yourself among your target audience.
Remember, style books are about giving an artistic and aesthetic look to the brand, by generating personality and distinction.
Use the colors that identify your style, add your logo to stay in customers' visual memory and to be recognized among other brands, and make your photographs have aesthetic and differential sense.
Tell a story
Every brand has a story to tell, whether be how everything started or where are the aims of the people who are behind it.
Storytelling is a must if you’re trying to create engaging content. The lookbook reflects the development and growth of a brand, with our content, we will seek to introduce the consumer to our way of thinking and creating.
Make your audience feel part of your fashion story. Therefore, in your content, you should try to reflect the diversity of your products and invite your consumers to get into your fashion story, and encourage them to experiment hand in hand with your brand.
In general, the lookbook does not include a lot of text, but to introduce ourselves to our audience we could add a brief and concise paragraph about who we are and what we want to convey with this content, another option may be to add a video or a link to the website.
Now it's time to reach your audience!
Incorporate the content on your website, and social networks, email it, add it to your blog, etc.
Sharing the lookbook with as many people as possible will make your content reach different places, making your brand more visible.
Social networks can be one of the best scenarios to share your Lookbook with the world. You can create posts and photo albums that showcase different looks, highlighting the unique features of each garment. With visually appealing, high-quality content, you can convey the essence of your brand and capture the attention of your target audience.
In addition
The visual experience you generate in your viewers will be key to the success of your content and to impulse your brand’s essence.
Remember that the objective of a lookbook, beyond showing products, is to transmit the essence and style of your brand and leave an impression on the user.
With the tips we developed above, you will reach the desired audience, generating a good consumer experience.
With Heyzine you can enhance your brand and make your viewers have an unforgettable experience with your content. Give it a try here!
