As decision-makers in marketing and production, you understand that a professional headshot or executive portrait is a critical brand asset. While lighting, composition, and high-end optics are the foundation of a great image, the subject’s wardrobe is the primary vehicle for communicating personality, authority, and industry alignment.
Choosing the right attire isn’t merely a matter of fashion; it is a strategic decision in image acquisition. At St Louis Headshots, we believe that when a subject feels confident in their presentation, it translates directly into the lens. Here is our expert guide on how to curate the perfect wardrobe for your next professional production.
1. Color Theory and Camera Optics
The camera perceives color and contrast differently than the human eye. To ensure the subject remains the focal point, we recommend:
Mid-tones and Rich Neutrals: Jewel tones (emerald, sapphire, plum) and deep neutrals (charcoal, navy, chocolate) are universally flattering and provide excellent separation from most backgrounds.
The “White” Rule: Pure white can often “blow out” or lose detail under high-intensity studio lights. We suggest off-white, cream, or light blue as alternatives for a crisp, professional look.
Avoiding Distractions: High-contrast patterns, pinstripes, and “moiré” inducing textures (tiny, repetitive patterns) can create visual “noise” in digital files. Solid colors are always the safest and most timeless choice.
2. Silhouette and Fit
Professional photography is a two-dimensional medium; therefore, the fit of the clothing defines the subject’s silhouette.
Tailoring is Key: Clothing that is too loose can add perceived weight and look unkempt on camera. Conversely, overly tight garments can pull and create distracting lines.
Structured Layers: For both men and women, structured layers like blazers or sport coats add a level of authority and provide a clean line at the shoulders, which is vital for the standard headshot crop.
3. Industry-Specific Styling
Your wardrobe should reflect your corporate culture.
Conservative Corporate: Full suits, ties, and classic blouses remain the standard for law, finance, and traditional corporate leadership.
Business Creative: Blazers paired with high-quality knits or open collars allow for a more approachable, modern aesthetic while maintaining professional boundaries.
Tech and Startup: While more casual, the “elevated casual” look—think high-end polo shirts or dark denim with a tailored jacket—ensures the subject looks successful without appearing “stiff.”
Your Partner in Professional Image Acquisition
Selecting the right outfit is just the first step. To truly capture a brand’s essence, you need a production partner that understands the nuances of the commercial landscape.
St Louis Headshots is a full-service professional commercial photography and video production company. Since 1982, we have partnered with businesses, marketing firms, and creative agencies throughout the St. Louis area to deliver high-impact marketing assets. We provide the right equipment and a creative crew with the deep service experience necessary for successful image acquisition.
Our Comprehensive Capabilities Include:
Versatile Environments: We offer full-service studio and location video and photography. Our private studio features a dedicated lighting and visual setup perfect for small productions, interview scenes, and sets large enough to incorporate custom props.
Advanced Technology: We utilize the latest in Artificial Intelligence for our media services and are well-versed in all file types and software requirements.
Aerial Expertise: With licensed drone pilots, we capture stunning perspectives—and we can even fly our specialized drones indoors for unique interior tours and dynamic shots.
Post-Production Excellence: Our team handles everything from editing and post-production to repurposing your photography and video branding to help you gain more traction across diverse media platforms.
From setting up a private, custom interview studio to supplying professional sound, camera operators, and specialized equipment, St Louis Headshots ensures your next production is seamless and successful. We are ready to customize your media to meet any requirement.
When most organizations think about “brand,” they picture logos, colors, and typography. But one of the most visible — and often least controlled — parts of your brand is the people who represent it. Sales teams, leadership, recruiters, client-facing staff, and even vendors are frequently introduced online through their headshots.
If those headshots look like they’ve been collected from a dozen different photographers, phones, and lighting conditions over several years, your brand looks fragmented — even if everything else is perfectly on point.
A well-thought-out headshot style guide fixes that. It turns individual portraits into a consistent visual system that reinforces who you are as a company every time someone visits your website, LinkedIn page, proposal deck, or internal directory.
Below is a practical roadmap to defining and documenting your company’s headshot style guide — built from the perspective of a crew that lives and breathes corporate photography and video every day.
Why Your Organization Needs a Headshot Style Guide
Before you invest time and budget, it’s important to articulate why this matters to leadership and stakeholders.
1. Consistency across every touchpoint
Whether a client meets your team on your website, LinkedIn, a conference slide, or a pitch deck, their experience should feel unified. Consistent headshots:
Make your brand feel more professional and intentional
Reduce visual “noise” so attention goes to the person, not the photography differences
Support your brand standards as strongly as your logo and color palette
2. Faster onboarding and less friction
When new hires ask, “What photo should I use?” you shouldn’t be reinventing the wheel. A documented style guide:
Speeds up onboarding
Reduces back-and-forth with marketing, HR, and IT
Helps remote hires and satellite offices get it right without guesswork
3. Stronger employer brand and recruiting
Candidates judge you by your online presence. High-quality, consistent headshots send a subtle but powerful signal:
“We care about our people — and how they show up.”
“We’re organized and intentional.”
“You’ll be joining a team of professionals.”
4. Operational efficiency and content reuse
If your headshots are shot and delivered in a consistent way, it becomes far easier to:
Build templated layouts for proposals and pitch decks
Repurpose imagery for PR, thought leadership, speaking engagements, and social media
Integrate photos into video, microsites, internal platforms, and more
Step 1: Define the Strategic Goal of Your Headshots
Before you talk about backgrounds and lighting, you need to answer one simple question:
What do we want people to feel when they see our team?
Manufacturing / engineering / construction Skilled, practical, safety-minded, reliable, grounded.
That emotional target influences every visual choice. A crisp, high-contrast studio look sends a different signal than a softer, environmental background with shallow depth of field. Decide the emotional tone first — the technical details will follow logically.
Step 2: Choose Your Core Visual Parameters
This is where you turn strategy into specific, repeatable decisions. Your style guide should clearly address each of the following:
A. Orientation and crop
Decide on:
Orientation: Vertical is standard, but horizontal can work well for web and video integrations. The key is consistency.
Crop:
Tight: top of shoulders to just above the head
Medium: mid-chest to above the head
Wider crops are fine for leadership or environmental portraits, but your base standard should be tightly defined.
Document with visual examples so no one is guessing where to “cut off” shoulders, hair, or headroom.
B. Background style
This is one of the most visible parts of your style system. Options include:
Solid studio backdrop
Neutral gray, white, off-white, or a subtle brand color
Great for high consistency and easy retouching
Office environment (blurred)
Use your own offices, lobbies, or workspaces with shallow depth of field
Conveys “real people in a real place” while still keeping the subject prominent
Outdoor urban or natural backgrounds
Creates energy and authenticity, ideal for certain industries and brands
Whatever you choose, make it repeatable. Specify:
Color family or backdrop material
How much blur/bokeh you want in environmental shots
Whether the background should be evenly lit or subtly gradated
C. Lighting approach
Lighting is where “DIY snapshots” and “professional brand asset” diverge rapidly.
Decide on:
Overall look:
Clean and even (minimal shadow, good for corporate, medical, HR)
Primary light position (e.g., 45° off-center, slightly above eye level)
Fill or reflector usage
Whether glasses glare needs special attention (and how it will be handled)
D. Posing and expression
This is where your people’s personalities intersect with your brand message.
Define:
Body angle:
Facing camera straight-on
Turned 15–30° from camera, eyes back to lens (often more flattering and dynamic)
Expression range:
Friendly and approachable with a natural smile
For some roles, a confident, neutral expression may be appropriate
Provide example images that show “target” expressions and posture. This helps align internal expectations and makes sessions smoother for everyone.
E. Wardrobe guidelines
Your headshot style guide should include simple wardrobe rules, tailored to your organization’s culture:
Colors:
Avoid overly bright colors or loud patterns that distract from the face
Recommend solid or subtle patterns in your brand’s color family or neutral tones
Necklines and layers:
Collared shirts, blazers, or tailored tops usually photograph well
Avoid overly casual hoodies (unless that is part of your brand)
Accessories:
Keep jewelry minimal and non-distracting
Branding items (pins, lanyards) should be used intentionally
Make sure your dress code supports your diversity and inclusion values — your guide should help people look like the best version of themselves, not force everyone into the same mold.
Step 3: Define Technical and Delivery Standards
Your marketing and IT teams will thank you for this part.
Specify the following in your style guide:
File formats
Master files: High-resolution JPG or TIFF, sRGB or Adobe RGB as needed
Web-optimized files: JPG or PNG, compressed for your content management system
Transparent-background versions (optional): PNG files with a clean clipping path for slide decks and design use
Resolution and dimensions
Print master: e.g., 300 dpi, shortest side at least 2400–3000 pixels
Web/LinkedIn: e.g., 1200 x 1200 px or 1080 x 1350 px depending on platform strategy
Naming convention
A clear naming structure is critical for search and reuse. For example:
Lastname_Firstname_Department_Location_YYYYMM.jpg
Standardize this so every headshot delivered over the years stays searchable and organized.
Retouching guidelines
Define what is and is not acceptable:
Standard retouching might include:
Temporary blemish removal
Light skin smoothing
Color and exposure correction
Stray hair clean-up
Avoid:
Over-smoothing or unrealistic “plastic” skin
Changing facial structure or features
Altering someone’s appearance in a way that misrepresents them
Clear retouching standards reduce awkward conversations and protect trust with your employees.
Step 4: Build a Repeatable Process for New and Existing Staff
A style guide is only effective if it’s easy to execute.
For in-office staff
Schedule recurring “headshot days” once or twice a year.
Book a dedicated space that matches your guide (studio or designated area in your office).
Create a simple booking link or internal sign-up process.
Share prep instructions with each person ahead of time.
For remote or hybrid staff
You have a few options:
Regional shoot days with a trusted local photographer who follows your guide
Central studio days aligned with quarterly or annual in-person meetings
Professional remote headshot sessions with guided lighting and posing, plus AI-assisted background matching (when appropriate and disclosed)
In all cases, your style guide should include exact instructions for any external photographers or partners to follow.
Step 5: Document the Guide and Make It Accessible
A headshot style guide is only as useful as its availability.
Create a simple, practical document that includes:
The why (business rationale and intended emotional tone)
Visual examples of approved headshots
Clear do’s and don’ts
Technical specs and file delivery expectations
Contact info for your internal marketing team and your preferred production partner
Host it where stakeholders naturally go:
Brand or marketing portal
HR onboarding resources
Internal wiki or intranet
Shared drive or DAM system
Whenever someone requests or updates a headshot, the style guide should be the first attachment.
Step 6: Integrate Headshots into Your Broader Content Strategy
Once your headshots are consistent, they become powerful assets across all your media.
Consider:
Adding animated or video headshots for key leaders — short, well-lit clips that integrate seamlessly into your video marketing (interviews, testimonials, recruiting, training).
Repurposing stills into speaker one-sheets, PR kits, and LinkedIn carousels.
Creating team “meet the people” videos that open with consistent headshots and move into short on-camera introductions.
Here’s where partnering with a production team that handles both photography and video becomes valuable — your headshot style can extend naturally into on-camera interviews, B-roll, and brand stories.
Step 7: Plan for Maintenance and Evolution
Your headshot style guide should be:
Stable enough to provide consistency over several years
Flexible enough to evolve with your brand
Best practices:
Review your guide every 18–24 months, especially after a rebrand or major shift in company culture.
Audit your website and internal platforms yearly:
Are all headshots up to standard?
Are old, inconsistent images still live?
Ensure your production partner keeps detailed records so new sessions match the established look.
How St Louis Headshots Can Help You Define and Execute Your Style Guide
Building a corporate headshot style guide is part creative direction, part technical specification, and part logistics. It’s not just about taking a “nice picture”; it’s about creating a repeatable visual system that supports your marketing, HR, and leadership teams for years.
That’s where we come in.
As experienced photographers, videographers, and producers, St Louis Headshots works with companies, marketing departments, and agencies to:
Audit your current imagery and identify gaps
Help define the emotional and visual direction for your headshot system
Design lighting, backgrounds, and posing that align with your brand
Document everything in a clear, usable style guide
Execute efficient, low-disruption photo days for large and small teams
Extend your headshot look into video interviews, testimonial content, and other marketing assets
At the end of the day, our goal is simple: make your people look like the best, most authentic version of themselves — in a way that also serves your brand.
Why Teams Across St. Louis Trust St Louis Headshots
Experienced St Louis Headshots is a full-service professional commercial photography and video production company with the right equipment and creative crew service experience for successful image acquisition. We offer full-service studio and location video and photography, as well as editing, post-production and licensed drone pilots. St Louis Headshots can customize your productions for diverse types of media requirements. Repurposing your photography and video branding to gain more traction is another specialty. We are well-versed in all file types and styles of media and accompanying software, and we use the latest in Artificial Intelligence for all our media services to streamline workflows, deliver consistent results, and extend the life of your content.
Our private studio lighting and visual setup is perfect for small productions and interview scenes, and our studio is large enough to incorporate props to round out your set when needed. We support every aspect of your production—from setting up a private, custom interview studio to supplying professional sound and camera operators, as well as providing the right equipment—ensuring your next video production is seamless and successful. We can even fly our specialized drones indoors when your project calls for dynamic, controlled aerial perspectives.
As a full-service video and photography production corporation, since 1982 St Louis Headshots has worked with many businesses, marketing firms and creative agencies in the St. Louis area for their marketing photography and video. If you’re ready to define and document your company’s headshot style guide — and turn portraits into a strategic brand asset — we’re ready to help you plan, shoot, and deliver it right.
St Louis Headshots 