Case Study - Product and Brand Photography for Adapt+Grow
Adapt+Grow are a company dedicated to producing high-quality nutritional supplements. Initially operating as a reseller for another manufacturer, the founder, Matthew, had always aimed to develop and sell a unique range of products to sell under his own brand.
In the lead-up to releasing their first products - a complementary pair of new all-natural supplements designed specifically to help people deal with stress and achieve better sleep - they needed to establish a brand identity and get ready to sell online.
After a initial meeting with Matthew in a Leamington coffee shop to discuss what he was looking to achieve with the photos, we arranged a day’s shoot at his home, to capture the images Adapt+Grow needed for a successful launch.
We started with the e-commerce, or catalogue, images of the two bottles that Matthew needed. Despite the simplicity of the images above, this type of product photography often takes the longest to get right, so it gave us a chance to discuss the other images required while I was setting everything up. Although it’s easier to do this type of product photography in the studio, I’ve always made sure that the equipment I buy is fully portable, meaning I can achieve the same results almost anywhere, and so a corner of the kitchen temporarily became a studio to capture the crisp images needed for the shop section of the website.
Next, we moved on to a selection of more lifestyle-themed images, keeping the fresh, clean aesthetic but adding in some context in the form of a few key props. We chose a small chopping board to use as a base for the bottle, as the wood complemented the brown bottles and the capsules themselves, and the organic shape of the board helped keep things from looking too clinical. A couple of plants and a healthy breakfast added some pops of colour without introducing too much of a distraction.
For the next set of photographs, we set up some scenes to show the products in use. Their names are self-explanatory, so to reflect and reinforce that message we created images of the AM version in some typical “morning” scenes, mainly using the kitchen, before setting up a few “evening” shots of the PM version on the bedside table and on a white duvet. Matthew’s wife stepped in to model in some of shots, which helped ensure the images looked relatable (even just a hand holding a product can add a particular authenticity to the images and help convince potential customers that, yes, this is a real product real people actually use). Having a person in the photographs can also help customers understand things like the size of a product, which wasn’t really an issue in this case, but is something to think about if you’re selling your items solely online.
I also captured some detail and pack shots of the product and the shipping carton customers receive. Again, these types of images are useful to help a customer understand exactly what they’re getting when they order the product.
Finally, I took a series of personal branding portraits, for use on the Adapt+Grow “About Us” page.
In all, we ended up with over 80 photographs, giving Adapt+Grow plenty of options for their website and social media content. It was a pleasure to work with Matthew and, while we worked to a brief he had prepared, the day’s shoot gave us plenty of time to try out a different ideas for images and experiment as we went along. I’m really pleased with the way the images look and I think we struck a great balance between getting plenty of variety in the shots and maintaining consistency for the brand’s overall look and feel.
If you’d like to learn more about Adapt+Grow and their supplements, please visit their website, or check out their Instagram and Facebook pages.
