From Nature to the City: Kat Ashton's Personal Branding Shoot, Part Two
If you haven't read Part One of Kat's shoot yet, go and do that first, it'll give you the full picture of who Kat is and why we approached her personal branding the way we did. Then come back here, because Part Two is where things got really interesting.
Part One was all nature. Open space, flowing movement, the natural world as backdrop and visual language. It was stunning and it felt completely right for Kat's values as a sustainability-focused service designer.
But a brand story told entirely in one setting is only half a story…
Taking it into the city
For Part Two, we headed into Nottingham, a completely different visual world. Urban, busy and real, and on paper, a world away from where we'd started.
But here's the thing about a well thought through personal branding shoot: contrast can work for you, not against you, when there's a clear thread holding everything together.
Kat had recently been working with Pret on their user experience and that project felt like the perfect anchor for the second shoot. Because Pret isn't just a coffee shop. For a service designer whose whole practice is about improving the way people experience businesses, it's a real-world example of the kind of work Kat does and the kinds of clients she works with. Heading there to shoot wasn't a random location choice, it was a deliberate piece of visual storytelling.
We're showing you her values and now we're showing you her work…
The thread that ties it together
What made this two part shoot work as a cohesive brand identity, rather than just two unrelated sets of images was keeping the feel consistent even as the setting changed completely.
Same sense of movement, the same natural and unposed energy. And of course, the same Kat, in her element, out in the world rather than sitting behind a desk pretending to type.
The environments are opposites: green and open in part one, concrete and busy in part two. But the person moving through them is unmistakably the same. And that consistency is exactly what strong personal branding photography does. It gives someone a complete, multi-dimensional picture of who you are.
Part one captured her values, part two captured her clients and together, they complete her brand story.
Why a two-part shoot works so well
This is something I'd genuinely recommend for any consultant, strategist or service professional building a personal brand. Your work happens in more than one world. You have values and you have context the industries you work in, the spaces your clients inhabit, the real-world problems you solve. Both deserve to be part of your visual identity.
A single location shoot, however beautiful, can only show one facet. Two shoots, planned thoughtfully with a clear narrative thread, give you a gallery that's genuinely versatile, images that work across your website, your press and that tell a full, rich story about who you are and what you do.
Kat's shoot is one of my favourite examples of this and I'm so proud of what we created together across both sessions.
If you're a consultant, designer or professional based in Nottingham, Lincolnshire or anywhere across the East Midlands and you're ready to build a personal brand that actually looks and feels like you, all of you, not just the polished highlights reel then I'd love to chat.
