I've been trolling this site for a long time and have learned a lot from some of the great photographers on here. I am just getting started with my plan on getting serious and hope after a few months of practicing and improving I can try to launch officially. In the mean time I'm trying to get branding in order. Let me know what you think so far of my logo nd website. It's a very simple text logo that my wife designed. I have seen some logos with more graphical elements but I think simple is good too.

http://joshuagrasso.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/jpg-logo-0011.png

As far as the website you can check that out from my profile link. I don't want to spam on my first post!
I used the expression theme for wordpress. I like the idea of wordpress so that it is much easier to manage the content that I add in the future. I still need to finish adding content with more galleries and pages but like I said I'm just getting things set up.

Any comments appreciated! Hopefully I'll be able to contribute as I learn to be like some of the big shots on this board.

I am not really sure what you are asking ....
The logo is fine... not great but I suppose it works.
What exactly are you trying to accomplish with it?
As far as branding goes your logo is really not the most essential part.

Let me ask you this...
In 5-8 bullet points list out your ideal client that you would like to shoot every single time.

What kind of photography do you want to specialize in?

hardlyboring wrote:

Let me ask you this...
In 5-8 bullet points list out your ideal client that you would like to shoot every single time.


^^^ This. The logo is only the beginning of proper branding. Who do you want to be? What kind of photographer are you? What's your style?

These are all more important than the logo.

I guess I rambled a bit in the first post... basically I just wanted a little feedback on the look of the website and logo. Its probably a little unfocused as of yet as I just wanted some galleries on there to test things out and get started with a decent enough site to start marketing to friends who will let me practice and refine before I set out for real clients. Ultimately I want to do weddings and portraits and I will focus on whichever one I can be more successful at. I want to get fun high end clients that appreciate quality phojo style work....Im sure everyone wants that loo. that's kinds why my goal is to keep practicing and refining until I'm comforatable selling myself to that client base.. thanks guys

James Jenkins I agree. the logo was the first tangible thing I have made to sort of give myself that little morale boost and feeling of starting the process. hopefully I start making kickass images that will then represent me and foster my image. I hope to get to the point of selling myself as fun but still simple clean and elegeant in style.

You need to find your niche. The sooner the better. There's tens of thousands of wedding and portrait photogs out there. How are you different?

inku...love the work...I want to get that good and then specialize in weddings

joshua grasso wrote:
I guess I rambled a bit in the first post... basically I just wanted a little feedback on the look of the website and logo. Its probably a little unfocused as of yet as I just wanted some galleries on there to test things out and get started with a decent enough site to start marketing to friends who will let me practice and refine before I set out for real clients. Ultimately I want to do weddings and portraits and I will focus on whichever one I can be more successful at. I want to get fun high end clients that appreciate quality phojo style work....Im sure everyone wants that loo. that's kinds why my goal is to keep practicing and refining until I'm comforatable selling myself to that client base.. thanks guys
First off I agree with what Jamie is saying...

What you said above is great but you might want to get more focused than just "I will focus on whichever one I can be more successful at...".
What can you be more successful at? Why?
Which do you want to be more successful at?

I agree that most of us want higher end clients who appreciate good photography. But what makes your photography different from others? Why will they come to you instead of Joe next door?

I do not feel I can give you serious feedback on your website because I honestly have no idea who you want to be shooting. I have no picture in my head except someone that has money, which could be anyone.

For example my ideal couple is this:
- outdoorsy, artistic, free spirited, forward thinking, etc.
- organic, natural weddings that are held outside or have some type of "outside" element
- intimate interaction
- natural chemistry
- adventurous locations
- adventurous couples (hikers, skiers, bikers, travelers)
- wears "outdoor" brand clothing
- wears a suit at the wedding NOT a rental Tuxedo
- wears a simple dress at the wedding with moderate train and veil
etc. etc. and I could go on even getting into the types of places my couples would hang out, eat, shop, and also what types of music they would listen to etc.

Now... do I shoot these types of people every wedding...absolutely not. Which is one of the reasons my wife and I are moving next year. We know our ideal couple and they are not in Ohio where we are. Even though we may not shoot this type of couple every time we ONLY feature this type of couple on our website so that when we do have couples like that that come to our site they feel very at home there.

It is not an exact science and I am not a master by any means of attracting the ideal clients but I do understand how it works and know others who are doing it very well.

What you will find with most successful photographers here in the wedding forum is that they are targeting a very specific audience with there work. Without knowing what you want to shoot how can you target those people?
You could just shoot everything and hope that in the end you will be happy with that but that is not always going to be the case.

Jamesbjenkins wrote:
You need to find your niche. The sooner the better. There's tens of thousands of wedding and portrait photogs out there. How are you different?



Thats rubbish. Almost all photographers are the same. Personal style is a myth for 99.9% of photographers.

First learn the ropes, then learn to do it well. After that you might develop a style or just do as most do and buy the same presets or actions as everyone else and show off the results like you are the first photographer to ever do it.

Quickly looked through your wedding gallery on your website and my first three thoughts are:
1. Wow that is a lot of grainy/noisy pictures
2. Either compression is really bad or a lot of the pictures are out of focus.
3. What is up with the cat?

I'm going to be changing my website next year because I'm not happy with the picture compression. But for the time being the price was right.

I agree with figuring out what you want to shoot or at least have a more defined site for weddings/portrait work and then move sports and other stuff to another side page.

From a design perspective, the logo is okay, but to my eye there's not enough weight difference between "joshua" and "grasso," plus the blue and the grey are low contrast (likely very similar in luminosity -- try converting to greyscale and see how much of a difference there is).

Making matters worse is that it appears there's a size difference between "joshua" and "grasso" that makes the "joshua" letters taller than the "grasso" letters, even though they're not as wide. That creates an awkward appearance.

Experiment with making "joshua" much smaller and, perhaps, black, rather than grey, assuming your intention is to draw more emphasis to "joshua" or to "grasso"? Or try larger. But don't stretch or condense the lettering in one part but not the other.

The logo meets your goal of keeping it simple, but I don't think it does anything at all for you in terms of creating a distinctive look, which is a big part of the value of a good logo. Look at Alessandro's logo, or Hoffer's -- they're immediately recognizeable at a glance. That's the value of a good logo.

I agree with the design non eye catchy part. I think I want a more catchy symbolic one to use. I'll keep developing. I think one or two of my photos were just bad and grainy and I need to tighten whats selected. (and take better pictures lol) The rest are issues with compression because they look fine before I upload them. So I need to work on that.
Thanks for all the great feedback. Y'all Rock