Separate personal profiles from company communications
A personal LinkedIn portrait should recognise the individual at a small size. A company post may need wider context, activity, colleagues or a branded environment.
Agree whether employees may use the portraits independently and what happens when they leave. Personal use, company use and paid advertising should be explicit in the consent and licence.
Give each website page a visual role
A homepage image can establish the organisation and leave room for a message. A service page should show evidence of delivery; a team page needs identification; a case study may require people, process, place and outcome.
Avoid filling every page with interchangeable meeting photographs. The image should answer a question the page creates.
Plan portrait levels for different responsibilities
Decide which people need consistent headshots, environmental portraits, working scenes or group photographs. Seniority alone should not determine who receives useful coverage; the communication purpose should.
Record how future starters will be matched. Background, lighting, camera position and crop notes make later additions more credible.
Create campaign variations deliberately
Marketing layouts may need landscape, portrait, square and vertical compositions with clear copy areas. Capture a controlled variation when the set and subject are ready instead of relying on aggressive crops later.
Vary viewpoint, activity and distance while keeping colour and direction consistent. Reuse should feel like one campaign system, not the same frame pasted everywhere.
Show real work without exposing private information
Prepare demonstrations, screens, documents and customer environments that are safe to photograph. Use approved data and remove confidential whiteboards, access cards or third-party details.
Do not stage a process inaccurately for visual neatness. A factual reviewer should check safety practice, product versions and claims before publication.
Write useful names, captions and alt text
Identify people, roles, locations and activity while the information is available. File names and a simple asset register help marketing teams find the right image months later.
Alt text should describe the image in its page context, not repeat a keyword formula. Decorative uses may need different treatment from informative portraits or process images.
Keep masters separate from channel exports
Retain approved high-resolution masters, then create web or social versions with the correct crop, compression and colour space. Do not let a small downloaded social file become the archive copy.
Record which exports are current and who may create new ones. Consistent delivery prevents unapproved edits and repeated recompression.
Govern permissions and expiry
Attach consent, model or property restrictions, campaign dates and licence information to the library. Flag images that depend on employment, uniforms, products, locations or time-limited partnerships.
Review the assets when those facts change. A technically strong portrait can still become misleading or unusable.
Cross-channel brief
- Live layouts and page roles are documented.
- Personal-profile and company uses are separated.
- Portrait, working and campaign coverage has priorities.
- Required orientations and copy spaces are captured.
- Names, captions and privacy checks have owners.
- Masters, exports, licences and expiry dates are organised.
- A future-starter and refresh process is defined.
Plan the wider library with the brand photography guide, improve portraits with the staff-photo guide, or build a corporate photography brief with The Camera Guys.
