Aperture defines your intended focus—in photography and marketing
As both a hobbyist and professional photographer, I’ve learned that the best photographs are created with intentional compositions—and a little bit of luck. When setting up a shot, I start with an internal vision for the composition and use the exposure triangle to highlight the areas I want viewers to focus on. Generally, I begin with aperture, which determines what’s sharp and clear versus what fades softly into the background.
Just as aperture controls how much light enters the camera, determining a photo’s depth of field and focus, brand strategy guides a school in highlighting its core values, unique qualities, and brand personality while intentionally blurring less relevant details. A strong brand strategy ensures that your marketing has clarity and purpose, much like a well-set aperture keeps the subject of a photo sharp and captivating.
Keep Your Focus Clear.
If you want to showcase the white “prototype” Boba Fett over the others, it should be the only one in sharp focus. When everything is equally visible, it’s less clear what the viewer should focus on first. They might even notice that the box is a poor knockoff and start questioning the validity of the white “prototype” figure.
f/22
f/1.8
More than just a Logo
Your Brand Strategy is so much more than your visuals; it shapes and informs them. If you still think of your brand as only your logo, I recommend checking out Your Logo Is Not Your Brand here. And if you’re new to this series, I suggest starting with Part One, where I introduce the exposure triangle metaphor and its relevance to in-house marketing.
Why Brand Strategy Is Essential
Like the elements of the exposure triangle, the components of in-house marketing are deeply interconnected. A strong brand strategy doesn’t just guide the marketing team—it strengthens the partnership between marketers and administrators by providing clear focus and shared goals. Brand strategy isn’t just for the marketing department; any project that impacts your key audience’s perceptions of your school should align with it. This is why educating the entire organization on the strategy’s purpose and application is critical.
One practical way to ensure alignment is through creative briefs. A creative brief acts as a clarifier for individual projects, ensuring every initiative ties back to your overarching Brand Strategy. Without it, creative work can veer off course, producing visuals or messaging that may look good but fail to support your school’s identity or goals. Worse, the final deliverable may miss its ideal timing. A creative brief ensures that everyone involved—designers, writers, and stakeholders—understands the purpose, audience, and desired outcomes of a project. It’s not about limiting creativity; it’s about focusing it where it matters most.
Brand Strategy doesn’t just guide the marketing team—it creates alignment across the organization. It empowers the team to prioritize impactful projects, say no to off-brand requests, and explain those decisions to others with clarity. Over time, this shared understanding reduces scope creep and ensures a smoother, more effective workflow.
For marketers, a brand strategy acts as guardrails, removing the need to reinvent the wheel for every project. For example, designers don’t need to create new identity systems for each event or department; instead, they can rely on the brand strategy to guide new visuals, ensuring they align with the established identity. This isn’t laziness—it’s disciplined creativity that reflects and reinforces your brand’s goals.
Throughout this series, you’ll notice a recurring theme: the Creative Brief. At its core, a Creative Brief is a simple but powerful tool to formalize creative requests. It ensures both sides—the requestor and the creative team—think through the project thoroughly. A good brief outlines the purpose of the project, how it aligns with the Brand Strategy, key milestones, deadlines, and deliverables from both sides (and yes, this includes supplying content before requesting big projects like websites!).
If you’re looking for a first step toward optimizing your in-house systems, start with this. A well-crafted Creative Brief sets the foundation for smoother, more effective collaboration. Need help getting started or tailoring briefs for your team? School ID is here to help!
Guardrails Enhance Creativity
Creatives should embrace guardrails, not resent them. Early in my design career, I felt the need to prove my creativity by breaking away from what had been done before and putting my own spin on everything. While this approach sometimes produced visually interesting work, it often wasted time and failed to support the intended audience perceptions. Discipline is a vital part of staying on-brand.
In fact, constraints can inspire creativity. I learned this in an illustration class where we had weekly sketchbook assignments with specific themes. I looked forward to the weeks with no limitations, thinking they’d be the most fun. But when the time came, I found it surprisingly difficult. Without boundaries, there was nothing to challenge or shape my work. The same principle applies to design: constraints, like those defined by a Brand Strategy, focus creativity, allowing creatives to push the boundaries in more intentional ways.
Graphic designers often encounter clients who expect them to “surprise” them with work beyond what they could imagine, yet offer no direction. This is a recipe for disaster. A brand strategy provides the necessary guardrails, enabling designers to surprise clients within the framework of the brand. It also helps justify decisions: when someone requests an off-brand color change or visual tweak, designers can point back to the strategy, explaining why consistency matters and why, for instance, the blue can’t just be changed on a whim.
In Summary: A well-defined Brand Strategy is your aperture, guiding your marketing focus and ensuring all visuals, messaging, and projects align with your school’s identity. It’s not about stifling creativity—it’s about focusing it to produce work that fully supports your school’s mission and goals.
Keep an eye here for the upcoming Parts of this series:
Part 3: Shutter Speed – Optimizing Project Management
Shutter speed determines the duration of light exposure, symbolizing the role of timing and efficiency in project management.
Part 4: ISO – Effective Collaboration Between Educators and Marketers
ISO adjusts a camera’s sensitivity to light, bridging the gap between aperture and shutter speed. Similarly, strong collaboration connects strategy and execution, ensuring cohesive and adaptable marketing efforts.
