How to Make a Lookbook for Fashion

Rules of Good Look Book Design
• High quality imagery and graphical elements
• Design for your target market, not your personal preferences
• Keep the style consistent from issue to issue to help build and support your brand design

With the term lookbook starting to pop up all over you might be wondering just what is a lookbook? It's simple, a lookbook is just that, a book that shows off the look of your brand or business.

Not to be confused with it's online version also called a fashion lookbook; the traditional fashion lookbook was initially an physical book consisting of high quality photographs of a designers best work.

The newest trend for using these books is simply for self-promotion and distribution of promotional materials. Traditionally, lookbooks are made up of high quality images and models, often being as detailed as a fashion magazine would be.

How lookbooks were used in the past When they first came out, lookbooks were sent to retailers and the press to help showcase the work of the business or product while giving a feel for the new one however, with the takeoff of the internet many are now going online as well for better viewing by more people.

A lot of times lookbooks are compared to catalogs, but catalogs unlike lookbooks have direct product shots as well as prices directly related to that product. Whereas a catalog does its best to hard sell you to buy a specific product or service, a lookbook is known to get you more acquainted with the product or service in its natural setting and is used more for informational purposes as well as a bit of soft selling.

Let's take a look at some things to take advantage when creating your first lookbook.

Who is your target market? Just like any other business model, you need to consider who your target market is. Since you're essentially creating images and scenes for your target market to see, you want to make sure that the images are related to the market you chose to promote to.

If using a model think of someone in your target market people look up to, if using a location or scenes from a location think of where your target market mainly lives or what location they mostly think of when visiting somewhere new or special.

Keep your expenses low Unless you already have a good following most likely you won't have a lot of money to blow on super high quality images for your lookbook. Use the objects and people around you and take some of the images yourself or get someone whom you know who is a bit of a shudder-bug to help you.

Ask local businesses or friends to borrow props they may have and if you can offer them credit where credit is due. Remember, if you get someone involved and give them the proper credit, they will most likely want to help you again.

Make a professional design Once you have all necessary photos or drawings it's time to design your lookbook. You can use programs like photoshop, indesign or illustrator. Once you have it as a PDF document, you will be able to easily put the book on your website for ease of access for your clients.

Print is not quite dead A lot of people still like the look of a lookbook in printed form. Sometimes you can make an even bigger impression by having the book both on your website and as a printed book or brochure for people to show their friends when they are offline or not readily able to take advantage of a connection.

There are lots of lookbook print services available online and PrintNinja is one of them, they understand that even the smallest details of your lookbook -- crisp, clean fonts and clear, vibrant colors, for example -- matter tremendously. You can preview lookbook templates, get help and ideas or get a quote here.

Finally Promote! Your lookbook is finally printed, and ready to go. You have it on your website and you are ready to have it distributed all over the web. Put a link to it in your blog, post to other influential blogs and link back to it, stick it in a press kit or even pass out flyers related to your lookbook.

As you can see there are many ways to create a lookbook for your business. you can use these and even make your own creative ways to spread your lookbook virally and promote it. Remember, the more people who see your lookbook, the more possible clients you can have for your business.

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