A Look Book

Many advisors and experts stress the importance of writing a business plan and keeping it updated.  No doubt, having a thorough understanding of your business, the market you are in and your competition is an incredibly valuable tool as you plot your future.  However, I would say equally important, if not more so, is to create a Look Book for you, your art and your creative business.  And, if I had to choose to complete one, hands down I would advise most ongoing creative businesses to create a Look Book before writing (or rewriting) a business plan.

The Look Book comes from fashion and is what many designers put together to convey their vision for their brand and what they are planning for the coming season.  I choose to call it a Look Book, but you can call it a Brand Book, Vision Book, or Pitch Book if you like.  My Look Book goes further than all of these generalizations and seeks to define for the reader who you are as an artist, what your creative business stands for, what you have accomplished so far and what you hope to accomplish in the future.  You should be able to customize each book for a particular reader so that, after they go through the Look Book, they know why they should (i.e., have to) do business with you.

To be very specific, your Look Book should include the following sections: Your biography, what inspires you, your brand statement, your media presence, examples of what you have done (i.e., case studies), what you and your creative business can offer the reader, and your contact information.  Your Look Book is a visual statement.  You are telling your story with images and design as much as you are with words.  If you are not a designer by trade (graphic preferably), invest the time (and maybe even a little money) to make the layout and images as appealing as possible.  The Look Book is all that you are distilled into about fifteen pages – so each page counts A LOT.

Why a Look Book? Because creating it makes you define who you are and, as important, who you are not.  It forces you to think about who your creative business has value to and what exactly you offer that will help your clients personally, professionally or both.  Most important, a Look Book is your guide to how you want to sell yourself and to stand apart.  A business plan tells the world (and yourself) the million reasons why your creative business is compelling.  However, a business plan, at base, is a passive exercise and doesn’t challenge the emotional ethos of why you do what you do.  It is intellect over emotional connection.

A Look Book is active and demands that you exude an emotional connection with your art.  At the end of the day, this emotional connection and your ability to sell it to your clients is all that matters.  Yes, you need a relevant and compelling business model and process.  But, the difference between want and need is a razor’s edge.  Need creates long-term demand and, hopefully, long-term financial success.  Getting stuck at want makes you like everyone else.  For you, your art and your creative business to be a “need”, you have to convert your clients to true believers with a deep emotional connection to all that you are about.  A Look Book alone will not convert your clients from want to need, but it certainly is a great place to start.