🎥 Adding your branding to Light Blue’s client portal

It’s important to ensure that your photography brand is reflected across all areas of your business and any online communication you have with your client through Light Blue’s Client Portal is no exception to this. Whether it’s a contract, form, questionnaire, online invoice or email you want their design to reflect and be consistent with your brand.

To learn more about how to do this watch the video below; though if you prefer to learn by words and pictures, have a read of the help article instead!

🎥 And once you’ve set up your Client Portal branding watch our video about setting up your printed branding in the Light Blue desktop app.

Adding your branding to online documents and emails

1. To add your branding to contracts, forms, questionnaires, online invoices and emails, log into your online account through the “My Account” tab you can see top right on our website and head to the “Branding” section within “Client Portal settings”. 👉 Follow this link to take you to the login page and then directly to the “Branding” section.
2. You can then customise the “Standard branding” option showing in the dropdown menu; as you scroll down the page you’ll see you have the option to change the fonts, images, colours and the various different styling elements, like fields and buttons, to fit your brand.  

3. Review and refine your design by clicking on both “Preview a sample form” and “Preview a sample contract” until you’re happy with how it all looks.

Adding your branding to Contract PDF’s

Whilst your client will see your branding when they view their contract online (assuming of course you’ve followed the section above!), you must also include your branding in the contract PDF. This is a PDF of their contract sent to them after they’ve signed it. The easiest way to imagine what this could look like is to think of a traditional business letterhead that includes branding, a company address, other contact details and perhaps some legal information.

1. First of all you’ll need to create your letterhead as a PDF. The simplest way to do this is to use Word or Pages to design your letterhead and then use the ‘Export’ option to create your PDF.  Alternatively, you could use an application like Adobe Acrobat or one of a number of free PDF creators available online. NB. Remember to create your PDF in the paper size you generally use; usually A4 or US letter. 
2. If you’re not already logged in, log into your online account through the “My Account” tab you can see top right on our website and head to the “Contract PDF” section within “Client Portal settings”.👉 Follow this link to take you to the login page and then directly to the “Contract PDF” section.
3. You can then customise the “Standard branding” option showing in the dropdown menu and upload the PDF letterhead you’ve just created. ⭐️ Top tip: Whilst there is the option to add an individual header and footer to create your contract PDF, our recommendation is to use the “PDF letterhead” option. This creates a better quality file and allows you to be more creative with your letterhead, like adding elements such as a border around the page.

4. Review how it looks by clicking on “Preview a sample PDF” and amend your margins as required.

👉 This help article covers all the steps to fully set up your branding in Light Blue; both online as explained above and printed.

Adding multiple brands

Once you’ve added one brand to your Client Portal it’s very easy to add a second (or even a third or more!) if you have different branding for different areas of your business. Though do make sure you have different Shoot Types set up for each of your brands before starting these steps. 👉 If not, head. on over to this help article to learn how to do so.

1. If you’re not already logged in, log into your online account through the “My Account” tab you can see top right on our website and head to the “Branding” section within “Client Portal settings”. 👉 Follow this link to take you to the login page and then directly to the “Branding” section.
2. With the “Standard branding” option showing in the drop-down menu, click on the “Create a new brand based on this one” button.

3. This creates a duplicate brand which you can rename accordingly and, as you did with your initial brand, you can scroll down the page to see the different customisation options making sure you review and refine your design by clicking on both “Preview a sample form” and “Preview a sample contract” until you’re happy with how it all looks.

4. You also need to update the Contract PDF for each brand, so go the “Contract PDF” section within “Client Portal settings” and from the drop-down menu, choose the brand you’re working on.
5. Rename the brand and business appropriately.
6. Upload the PDF letterhead for the brand you’re working on making sure you review how it looks by clicking on “Preview a sample PDF” and amend your margins as required.

7. The final step in the process is to now add this brand to the applicable Shoot Type back in the Light Blue desktop app; in Preferences, click on “Shoot Types” in the “Business Setup” category.
8. Choose the Shoot Type you’re working on and the “Email & Client Portal” tab.
9. Choose the correct entries from each of the drop-down menus.

👉 This help article covers all the steps to fully set up multiple brands in Light Blue; both online as explained above and printed.