In every brochure you print, your people are the proof. Headshots are often the only “live” evidence a prospect sees that your organization is real, trustworthy, and current. Yet in many companies, those same headshots are five, seven, even ten years old—quietly working against everything else your marketing is trying to achieve.
As someone who spends a lot of time on set with business teams, I can tell you: updating headshots isn’t just a cosmetic exercise. Done properly, a headshot refresh is a strategic marketing move that directly supports sales, recruiting, and brand positioning—especially in print brochures that have a longer shelf life and tend to get passed around.
Let’s walk through how to think about updating your headshots specifically for marketing brochures, and how to plan a session that delivers assets you can repurpose across every channel you care about.
Why Brochure Headshots Age Faster Than You Think
Most organizations recognize that websites and social media need regular updates. Brochures, on the other hand, feel “finished” once they’re designed and printed. The problem is that your people don’t freeze in time when the PDF goes to the printer.
Common reasons brochure headshots age out quickly:
- Team changes – New leadership hires, promotions, departures, and reorganizations mean your printed piece no longer reflects your actual team.
- Visual brand updates – You refine your logo, colors, or typography, but the headshot style still reflects your “old” brand.
- Evolving customer expectations – Buyers are used to clean, modern, consistent imagery from national brands. Mismatched or obviously dated headshots stand out as a red flag.
- Hybrid and remote work culture – Roles shift, and clients expect to “meet” people visually even if they’re not physically present.
In brochures—where space is limited and every image has to earn its place—an outdated headshot does more than look tired. It can silently reduce trust and perceived professionalism.
The Marketing Impact: Headshots as Proof of Promise
Your marketing brochure makes promises: reliability, expertise, innovation, responsiveness. Your headshots should visually confirm those claims.
Well-planned, current headshots can:
- Increase perceived credibility
A cohesive set of images communicates that your organization is organized, detail-oriented, and invested in its people. - Support premium pricing
Sharp, consistent headshots help justify higher rates by reinforcing a polished, “buttoned-up” brand presentation. - Strengthen employer brand
If your brochure is also used for recruiting or HR outreach, modern, confident team images send a clear signal about your culture and standards. - Enhance sales conversations
When the face a prospect sees in your brochure matches the person they meet on a video call or in person, it eliminates friction and builds rapport faster.
In short: updated headshots keep your printed collateral aligned with the reality of who you are today.
How to Know It’s Time to Update Your Brochure Headshots
If you’re not sure whether your current brochure images are helping or hurting, start with a quick audit:
- Time check
- Are most of the headshots older than 3–5 years?
- Do they predate major organizational changes or rebrands?
- Style consistency
- Do all subjects share a similar lighting style, background, and crop—or is it a patchwork of different sessions and DIY images?
- Are there obvious differences in quality (some crisp, some soft or grainy)?
- Brand alignment
- Do the colors, tone, and overall feel match your current website, presentation templates, and social channels?
- Are you still using backgrounds or poses that no longer reflect how you position your brand (e.g., stiff, formal portraits for a culture that now leads with approachability)?
- Team representation
- Are key decision makers, client-facing staff, or subject-matter experts missing entirely?
- Are there people in the brochure who no longer work with you?
If you’re saying “yes” to more than a couple of these, it’s time to treat headshots as a planned marketing initiative, not an afterthought.
Designing Headshots With Brochure Layout in Mind
This is where an experienced production team makes a real difference. Shooting for a brochure is not the same as shooting for LinkedIn or an internal directory.
When we plan headshots for marketing brochures, we look at:
1. Orientation and cropping
- Horizontal vs. vertical: Brochures often benefit from horizontal portraits that sit alongside copy or bleed into a spread. We’ll often capture both orientations to give your designer options.
- Safe crop areas: We compose with your intended layout in mind so important details aren’t lost when the designer tightens the crop or fits images into rounded or irregular frames.
2. Background strategy
- Brand colors: Background tones can subtly echo your brand palette without becoming overpowering.
- Clean vs. environmental:
- Clean studio backgrounds keep the focus on the subject and are easier to standardize.
- Lightly environmental backgrounds (office, industrial, healthcare, or architectural settings) can be blurred just enough to suggest context without cluttering the page.
For brochures, we often build a controlled, repeatable lighting setup that yields a polished, consistent look but still allows slight variations for different departments or leadership tiers.
3. Lighting and contrast for print
Print behaves differently than screens. We light and expose with enough contrast and detail that your portraits hold up on coated and uncoated paper stocks. Subtle adjustments in exposure, contrast, and retouching help prevent faces from printing too dark or too flat.
4. Space for design elements
Designers will often overlay names, titles, or brand elements near or on the image. We compose with intentional negative space so they can do that without covering faces or creating awkward crops.
Preparing Your Team: Reducing Friction and “Photo Day” Anxiety
One of the biggest barriers to updating headshots is internal resistance: “I hate having my picture taken.” “I don’t have time.” “Can we just use my old photo?”
Good planning reduces that friction:
- Pre-session guide
Provide a short, clear prep guide covering wardrobe, grooming, and what to expect. For example: solid or subtly patterned clothing, brand-friendly colors, avoiding busy prints and high-glare fabrics. - Scheduling strategy
We’ll help you build an efficient schedule that respects people’s time—often in short blocks per department or location, with buffer time for overages. - On-site direction
A professional photographer who works with business clients knows how to quickly coach expression, posture, and micro-adjustments so subjects look relaxed and confident, not staged. - Inclusive approach
Make sure you plan sessions for remote staff, satellite offices, and key freelancers or consultants who appear in client-facing roles. Consistency matters.
When your team experiences a smooth, professional session, it becomes much easier to schedule future refreshes instead of putting them off for years.
Getting More Value: One Headshot Session, Many Deliverables
If you’re updating headshots for brochures, it’s the perfect time to think beyond a single use case. A well-planned session can produce assets for:
- Marketing brochures & sales sheets
- Website “About” and team pages
- LinkedIn and social profiles
- Email signatures
- Conference and event programs
- Press kits and PR releases
- Internal communications and recruiting materials
- Video lower-thirds graphics and presentation decks
We routinely build capture plans that include multiple looks or crops—tight head-and-shoulders, ¾ length, and variations with different expressions—so your marketing and HR teams have options for different contexts without re-shooting.
Where AI Fits In (and Where It Shouldn’t)
Artificial Intelligence is now part of modern imaging workflows, but it needs to be used responsibly—especially for business portraits.
Smart, ethical uses in a headshot refresh:
- Subtle, natural retouching
AI-assisted tools can quickly handle minor skin distractions, stray hairs, or wrinkles in clothing, without turning people into plastic versions of themselves. - Background harmonization
We can clean up or unify backgrounds to match your brand, remove distractions, or create consistent sets across multiple shoot dates. - Format optimization
Automated upscaling and sharpening ensure your images remain crisp across different print sizes and digital platforms.
We draw the line at misrepresenting reality. Your headshots should be an honest, flattering representation of the people your clients will actually work with—not AI-generated substitutes.
Why Partnering With a Full-Service Production Team Matters
Refreshing headshots for brochures touches more than just photography. It’s about how those images integrate with your broader marketing ecosystem—print, web, video, and social.
A full-service team can help you:
- Align headshot style with your existing brand standards and design templates
- Plan capture days across multiple locations or departments
- Build a file-naming and delivery structure that’s easy for your marketing and design teams to use
- Prepare images in multiple versions (print-ready CMYK, web-optimized RGB, square and vertical crops, transparent-background PNGs where appropriate)
- Ensure that future photo additions match the original style so your brochures stay cohesive even as your team evolves
Partner With St Louis Business Portraits
If you’re ready to stop relying on outdated, mismatched portraits in your marketing brochures, it helps to have a production partner who understands both the creative and technical demands of business imaging.
Experienced St Louis Business Portraits is a full-service professional commercial photography and video production company with the right equipment and creative crew service experience for successful image acquisition. We offer full-service studio and location video and photography, as well as editing, post-production and licensed drone pilots. St Louis Business Portraits can customize your productions for diverse types of media requirements, and repurposing your photography and video branding to gain more traction is another specialty. We are well-versed in all file types, styles of media and accompanying software, and we use the latest in Artificial Intelligence for all our media services.
Our private studio lighting and visual setup is perfect for small productions and interview scenes, and our studio is large enough to incorporate props to round out your set. We support every aspect of your production—from setting up a private, custom interview studio to supplying professional sound and camera operators, as well as providing the right equipment—ensuring your next video production is seamless and successful. We can even fly our specialized drones indoors for unique perspectives when your project calls for it.
As a full-service video and photography production corporation since 1982, St Louis Business Portraits has worked with many businesses, marketing firms and creative agencies in the St. Louis area for their marketing photography and video. When you’re ready to update your headshots for marketing brochures—and every other place your brand shows up—we’re ready to help you do it right.
314-913-5626
stlouisphotos@gmail.com
Mike Haller
Studio – 4501 Mattis Road St Louis, MO 63128
St Louis Business Portraits 