The talent is the proof: how people-led branding brings businesses to life

Our work with financial services firms starts by engaging with founders and their teams, understanding what they do and what makes them successful. A huge part of that is the relationships they build, so it’s inevitable that we want to wrap that sense of interaction and warmth into the brands and websites we create for them. Placing their people at the centre of their business emphasises the talents and personalities that resonate with colleagues and clients, beginning new conversations, face to face.

We’re still designing a lot of business cards in 2026. They’re getting sharper and more beautiful, often highly finished with custom foils, embossing or well-chosen paper stocks. It’s a far cry from the summer of 2021, just five years ago, where people talked about anything printed being a thing of the past. Many also said the same thing about in-person meetings. That year was a re-set of course; it could have been a moment where networking became as anachronistic as the bowler hat, but it’s interesting what has persisted or returned in force. That simple act of handing over a piece of card to tell a potential contact about who you are and where you work is something people love still, even in this digital age.

What then? When you’ve made that connection, had the conversation of shared interest, handed over that card, what happens next? In almost every instance, your new contact will take a look at the website printed on it or find your profile on LinkedIn. They’ll be looking for a moment of clarity and familiarity: a photograph of your face, ideally a good-quality, clear image that will reinforce the in-person impression.

That image, with its spark of recognition, is easily the most important part of the chain linking first contact and doing business. What’s become interesting in the last year is the way in which we’ve seen clients old and new building on that connection by investing in high quality, brand-led imagery of teams, what we call ‘people-led branding’, to bring their business to life.

Xantium: a collegiate side of quant investment

The most satisfying shoots are those that subvert a narrative. Small, discreet interactions, captured well, are always relevant on a corporate website. Zooming in and taking those ‘micro shots’ is a tough brief on the face of it, especially for a photographer and creative team who may only have a few hours to build a relationship with people we don’t know and to contrive the right settings for them to transpire. Yet, that they do happen is perhaps not completely remarkable. The team is in a space where they already feel comfortable and we can always find ways to break down barriers and contrive the right kind of spontaneity.

For quant investment firm Xantium, we worked with photographer Philip Vile on a wide-ranging series of images that capture the team at work. However it was the interactions beyond the purely professional that were needed to round out the website and portray the team as they really are: thoughtful, amusing, warm people who just happen to work under one roof. Given relationships between team members are built and grown in the office space, perhaps it makes sense to photograph those moments outside the business day too, in downtime.

These micro-shots we took at the end of our shooting day were a pleasure for us too: we found our own common purpose within the team’s beer and pizza evening, seeing how easily the team chatted and joked. The warm and easygoing images we captured with Philip for the Xantium website are their own sort of people-led branding, helping explain how the team works on a personal level. Further, they offer a visual bridge to the target audience that the website clearly sets out as its aim from the beginning: their next generation of outstanding people.

Henwood Court: working together, for you

It was inevitable that the design for a financial services business aimed at the public (rather than other businesses) would require an on-brand, characterful creative approach. For investment advisory firm Henwood Court, a warm and engaging personality has always been their hallmark. After all, blending into the background is never a successful marketing strategy in a crowded market. They needed a website which captured their essence. We spent a long time working with Georgia and the team at Henwood thinking about how to find the right visual look for the firm. For Henwood Court, resonating with people matters before everything else and delivering a blend of the right images was central to the project.

A particular challenge was that the website needed three kinds of photograph. The first depicted their clients today, the second represented the clients of tomorrow and the third featured the team themselves. What I think is so interesting is that when we put them all together, the combination never jars, even where in places stock photography was used. I think this is testament to our intention to ensure every image sits together in harmony, making the right impact in the right place. That was particularly true of the shots of the team themselves.

We travelled to Sutton Coldfield, where Henwood Court is based, to direct a set of new team pictures. Rather than just photograph everyone separately, group shots were blended strategically spanning different teams, ages and backgrounds. It’s an approach which instinctively sits well for a relationship-led B2C business. Inevitably clients relate to different personalities and colleagues learn across their teams, so a website that reflects that range informs the user, moving beyond a purely decorative image. Our work blending these different yet coherent images helped define a house style of people-led branding, a set of accessible images that tell a story of a group of people who want to help.

NorthWall Capital: from formal to conversational

Always moving, growing, thinking ahead, NorthWall Capital is the definition of the new generation of our clients that retain an entrepreneurial spirit as they grow. It’s a business that remains founder-led, which I think helps explain their vibrant, front-foot approach. Everyone we meet at the firm is an expert in their field yet also finds time for an array of extra-curricular fundraising activities such as fun runs or sponsored marathons. I find this balance of acumen and altruism fascinating. To me, it’s at the heart of the firm’s ethos.

As we began work on their website project, one aspect of the branding that was a fait accompli was the headshots of the team. Considered, minimal and polished, these stylish photos were a gift to our design team. The shots were all taken at the studios of DG Corporate, a headshot agency that specialises in business portraits. Each image has a person looking their best, with a continuity of visual approach. That’s important continuity for a growing firm like NorthWall, given two years have passed since the project began.

We admired what Doren and his team at DG Corporate were doing and after seeing their work on the headshots, proposed working on a set of team-based shots. We spent time with the DG team capturing different situations at NorthWall’s central London offices, moving beyond their formal portraits into a set of dynamic conversational shots which I think feed off this acumen/altruism energy. Even better, delivering this quality of image directly reflects not only who NorthWall are but how they work. This is people-led branding that communicates dynamism and intelligence. Perhaps it also speaks to something beyond either of those attributes: vision.

The benefits of people-led branding for financial services firms

Autumn is what I call the ‘engine room’ of the year. It’s a time when fundamental decisions are made that shape the future of a growing company. As somebody who speaks to a lot of founders as well as their marketing leads about how to take advantage of this valuable time, if there was one constructive suggestion I could make, it would be to start any kind of brand work by placing your people at the heart of everything you do.

The fact is that a prospective hire scrolling your website sees the same thing as a contact who has taken your business card from you at a networking event, so it makes sense to begin rebranding by thinking of its human connection endgame.

We like to do just this, starting any brand project by thinking about how your internal professional relationships work and how the outside world will perceive these as a good fit for them. So this is a call to action to combine vibrance and originality, offering the outside world a personality-first texture that only people-led branding can deliver.

Work towards your 2027 business strategy

Richard Chapman Studio is a specialist branding and web design agency with over twenty years of experience understanding brand differentiation for B2B businesses across financial services, venture capital, legal, real estate, hospitality and beyond. To work with us, get in touch: 020 7351 4083 or email us directly.