Evolution Rebrand | North East Commercial, Portrait and Editorial Photography

I was delighted to be asked to take commercial photographs around Hartlepool, Gateshead, Sunderland, Middlesbrough and surrounding areas for accountancy firm Evolution LLP recently.

As well as being a photography partner to many marketing and PR agencies, I also work directly for clients and this commission came via Evolution’s marketing partner. A brand refresh meant some new advertising photography over the north east and involved a lot of careful planning and several meetings to establish the look and feel that would work best.

As well as using customers to tell Evolution’s story, we opted to go with a technique known as de-saturating the colour, to give a stylised, almost black and white look. This fitted well with the colour palette used by the web designers and lines up with the company’s new brand identity and push to promote its dynamic accountancy practice.

Being involved with the planning process for a photoshoot is really useful, it means I can get to grips with what the client is looking for, and suggest some appropriate approaches. 

Several meetings with Evolution staff and its marketing and web experts led to a schedule of commercial photography at six client locations including Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Gateshead, Brotton and Skelton.

Each location involved taking photographs of Evolution’s client in their natural habitat and included shots on a factory floor, at a creative agency and even a rally school. I gave the client several variations of shot at each venue, to make sure the photos would be suitable for a range of print and online uses. 

The clients are all highly successful business people and I went for strong, engaging shots with subtle backgrounds - what I call ‘hero’ shots. Having my mobile studio equipment with me meant I could dismiss the use of flash in favour of using all the natural light available and making the shots gritty and ‘real’.

As well as the portrait shots I was asked to cover the rebrand launch event for 150 invited guests. The event had been booked at Crathorne Hall in North Yorkshire but a huge fire there the night before saw a last-minute switch to photograph the event Wynyard Hall in County Durham and the event organisers did a great job of swapping venues without a hitch. 

As I moved round the room photographing key speakers and guests I was pleased to see how well my shots had worked on pop up banners and in large screen format as the audience were treated to Evolution’s new brand film. 

I was very happy to have been entrusted with producing the imagery to sum up Evolution’s fresh, engaging and contemporary new look, and I wish the firm and its clients all the very best for the future.