Don’t you just enjoy flipping through books and magazines, looking at amazing photos? Whether it may be photos of beautiful interior designs or exquisite fashionable apparel and accessories, a lookbook highlights the appeal behind every one of them. As a consumer, you must understand how satisfying it is to just see and look at each of these photos. There’s an effect of inspiration that hits you when you flip through a lookbook that captures just the right angles and views of these designs you love. And it’s time that as a business owner, you discover how these are made. Your business will benefit from your understanding what a fashion lookbook is, how to make a lookbook design, and how creating a lookbook can help your business. This article will also feature different fashion lookbook examples made with Strikingly.
What is A Fashion Lookbook?
A fashion lookbook is a catalogue that features a collection of photos and images of a particular fashion collection. It is usually captured by professional photographers but if you are a startup business, there are many photography tips that you can put to use in your own home. The important thing to remember is that a fashion lookbook compiles photos that showcase your products and designs. You must capture them in such a way that highlights the intricacies and the most amazing details of the design. A fashion lookbook’s primary purpose is to shine a spotlight on your products and entice your customers to get their hands on them. You want them to enjoy looking at these photos and lookbook design to where they want to purchase them.
In the previous years, fashion lookbooks used to be literally printed on paper. And while there are still many who do print their fashion lookbook designs, the emergence of advanced technology has allowed it to also be done online. Creating a lookbook and sharing them with the world has been made accessible to people like you who want to be part of the fashion design industry. Now you can create a fashion lookbook on your own fashion website.
How Creating a Lookbook Can Drive Sales?
Whether your business’ focus is clothing itself or just accessories or perhaps shoes and footwear, a fashion lookbook could help you drive sales to your store. If done right, it can motivate and inspire your site visitors and customers to not only browse through your lookbook design but to purchase what they see and like as well. But it does three things for your business:
1. It Spotlights Your Brand And Design.
A fashion lookbook is a collection of all your designs. It is a creative and highly immersive way to spotlight your brand and design. It’s not just simply displaying your products on your website, it is showcasing your products in a way that emphasizes what your brand is all about. And if site visitors enjoy what they see and understand what your brand stands for, then they will be more likely to become customers.
2. It Tells Your Customers All About Your Story.
Your fashion lookbook is not just about your brand and your products. When you look for other lookbook examples, you will discover that most of them also tell a story about their business and brand. Fashion designers usually attach a particular story to their collections. This helps them communicate to their customers what their most recent designs are meant to convey. Having a message sent by your designs is always an excellent marketing strategy to drive sales up.
3. It Can Help You Connect With Your Customers.
If looking at your fashion lookbook gives your customers a sense of joy and happiness, then they would be more inclined to actually purchase the products they are looking at. When you showcase your products in a lookbook design, you give your customers a place of comfort and satisfaction. By appeasing their eyes, you more effectively make an impact on their hearts and minds. This would ultimately drive more sales to your store.
How To Make A Fashion Lookbook That Rocks?
There are many fashion lookbook examples you can find online. And while you can be inspired by a particular lookbook example, you must keep in mind that there is no definite lookbook design you must follow. Remember that your goal is to highlight what you have and what your brand is all about. Here are a few tips on how to make a lookbook (even at home) that is perfect for you and your designs:
1. Get Some Photography Tricks up Your Sleeve
Even if you are not a professional photographer, you can take photos for your fashion lookbook. It will be better if you have a camera on you, though, since the best fashion lookbook examples you will find always use high-quality photos. With today’s technology, your phone’s camera might have enough juice in its specs and resolution to provide you with the quality you need. But all this will be for naught if you do not know how to properly take photos. There are many photography tips that you can find and read or watch online. Take some time to understand the best tricks and techniques you can use for taking photos. Your fashion lookbook relies first and foremost on how you are able to capture the best of your products.
2. Know The Basics of Photo Editing Software
While taking wonderful photos with your camera or phone is vital, it is also important to know how to edit your software post-production - or after taking them. Even the most professional photographers edit their pictures before actually publishing them. Learn about the basics of using editing software (Photoshop, PicsArt, Snapseed, etc.). Your fashion lookbook would benefit from you knowing how to make a more uniform theme in terms of lighting, contrast, colors, white balance, saturation, etc. You don’t have to necessarily be an expert on them immediately but it is helpful to know even the most basic tools that you can use to further enhance your images. The right combination of photography and photo editing will really bring out the best in your fashion lookbook.
3. Lay Out A Storyboard or Moodboard
In creating a fashion lookbook, it is important to have a unified theme. You do not want to just randomly take photos and splash them across the pages of your lookbook design. No fashion lookbook example that you’d find online is just a random collection of photos of products - that won’t be a very good lookbook design, if ever. A good way to brainstorm what your theme and lookbook design would be is to lay out a storyboard or make a mood board. This would allow you to get your ideas together and establish a visual look at them. This would help you create and decide on a theme that you would follow when taking your photos when editing them, and when you layout them in the actual pages.
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
4. Find The Perfect Background Setup
Even at home, you can find materials you can use to create your own mini-studio to shoot photos for your fashion lookbook. It doesn’t need to be just one uniform background, but it should still follow your specific theme. Your backgrounds help set the mood, so make sure that they do not clash with each other but help each other in establishing what you want them to look like. You must also be careful in customizing your backgrounds and making sure that they do not take away the attention from your products. While you want them to be beautiful and aesthetically pleasing, remember that it is only an accessory to highlight your primary product.
5. Be Imaginative and Precise with Your Captions
While you do not need to caption each and every photo on your fashion lookbook, every text you put must be relevant. You want it to give your customers a bit more information about your product and design. But remember that it does not necessarily need to be too detailed or elaborate. Browse through fashion lookbook examples and you will see how precise their captions are. Think of it like it’s a title or subtitle only. The main story has to be carried through by the photos in your lookbook design. You should still try to be creative and imaginative because it can really help your fashion lookbook.
5. Make Sure Each Page Has A Beautiful Layout
The final step in creating a lookbook for your store is to position it in an organized, well-designed, and beautiful layout. If you are going to be printing out your lookbook design, it is best not to overcrowd each page. You’d want to highlight every product and design you have as people physically flip through the pages. This also applies to when you want to create an online fashion lookbook. Website builders like Strikingly help you showcase your products and design in the most amazing way. You can use the “Product Showcase” Feature of Strikingly. This allows you to display your products in a variety of photos so customers can see your products in different views. It also allows you to put in the product's price and a description of it. The more commonly used section to feature designs and products is the “Gallery” section. Strikingly allows you to choose from a variety of layout designs for you to display your products and design is. Your fashion lookbook would not be at its best if you do not use the right and best lookbook design layouts.
Image taken from Strikingly Product
Fashion Lookbook Examples From Strikingly
1. Karen Lo
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
2. Stitched Alive
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
3. The Designers Squad
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
4. Yuko Koike
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
5. Isa Catepillan
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
Fashion lookbooks can very well be one of the defining factors that can change your business. Take displaying your products to a whole new level. Now that you understand what it can do for your business and how to create a lookbook that rocks, you can elevate your number of sales and loyal customers. Sign up with Strikingly now and create a fashion lookbook for your website!
