5 Easy Ways To Add Your Brand to Stock Photos

A strong brand identity makes each of our businesses instantly recognizable on social media and marketing. We all know how important it is, but how can you add your brand to stock photos?

Let me show you how!

I like to use a popular free online design program called Canva to do all of these tips.

I'll be using Clio & Fox Stock images and branding for my examples so you can see how I like to personalize our images for the ClioFoxStock Instagram feed. 

The basics of visual brand identity we're playing with are brand colours (mine are navy, burnt orange, yellow, teal and white) and brand fonts (or type faces). I'll go into these in a later blog post... but for now, be consistent with the fonts and colours you use and you'll start to build your visual brand identity.

Now that I've covered some of the basics, let's get to work!

1/ Add your logo

You should never feel icky about adding your logo to your images. It's a powerful and simple way to add your branding to just about everything.

I add my logo to every Clio and Fox Stock post. Sometimes it's bigger or smaller or in a different spot, but it's always there. This way, if my posts are shared, my brand is always there and people know where it came from. You can make your logo more subtle, if you'd like, by fading it so some of the background shows through.

2/ Add a coloured border in your brand colours

I had a bit of fun here and found a template that had 2 colours for the border! You can keep it simple with one colour too. The 2 colour border works here because the image is simple- no pattern on the background and the objects are arranged in a graphic, uncomplicated way. For busier images, a simple one-colour background works best.

Experiment with the size of your border! Sometimes a wide border with a smaller image can have a big impact. It's not something we see often. You can also experiment with using a different than expected shape. I've used a circle here.

3/ Use your brand fonts with your brand colours

I pretty much keep to only 3 fonts on my Clio & Fox posts. If you're a typeface nerd like I am, you might've noticed that I have 2 work horse fonts (in the image above) and save the third special one for emphasis and single words. 

By being consistent with my font choices I am building another layer of my brand identity. It's an easy way to make your posts look consistent. 

I like to play with colours and often look beyond black for my copy (fancy talk for the words on my images). Using my brand colours adds my branding and keeps my Instagram feed cohesive- the photos might all have a different look for the different collections, but my brand colours are sprinkled through it all.

4/ Use your brand colours as a text box

Here's another opportunity to get your brand colours onto a stock image. Pick one of your colours that feels right with the image. I picked navy blue here because of it's contrast- it really pops against the soft pinks. I used white for my copy because it was easy to read against the blue. Keep your copy simple and impactful. Put your headline on the image and save the details for the caption below ;)

You can experiment with shapes here too- circles look great in squares. I really like them because they echo the shape of my logo. It's a sneaky nod to my branding.

5/ Use decorative elements in your brand colours

Canva has some fun decorative elements available to jazz up your posts. They're an unexpected way to add in your brand colours and a subtle way to get that pop of branded-colour goodness! I've added a frame in my yellow above. It's faded back a little bit because I wanted it to act as a frame for my copy but not distract from it.

Decorative elements in your brand colours are perfect for supporting the other brand elements you're using in your posts!

Use one of these tips, or combine them. You're on your way to building a strong visual brand using stock images.

Any questions or suggestions? Please drop them in the comments.