Case Study · Financial Services
Phase Financial: A Team Photo That Grows With the Team
Phase Financial is a Northwestern Mutual wealth management practice in Clayton, Missouri, founded by Trevor Flota. The team has grown quickly over the last two years. Each time someone joins, they come to the studio, and the team photo is rebuilt with them in it. When someone moves on, the photo is updated too, so the team page always shows the team as it is today. The versions below run from six people to fifteen, and the group still reads as one photograph.
~2
Years running
8+
New-hire sessions
15
In today's team photo
Why group photos go out of date
A traditional group photo records one day. A growing team changes long before the next photo day comes around.
A group photo is out of date the day someone new starts
A team page is where prospective clients see who they will be working with. When the group photo is missing the newest advisor, or still shows the old roster, the page quietly says something the firm did not mean to say.
Reshooting everyone does not keep pace with hiring
Getting a whole practice into one room on one day is hard once. Doing it every time the team grows means pulling advisors away from clients again and again for a photo that is already out of date by the next hire.
New hires photographed elsewhere never quite match
A headshot made to a different setup looks different next to the rest of the team, even when each photo is good on its own. After a few hires the page reads as a collection of sittings rather than one firm.
How the program works
Two photographs come out of every session: an individual headshot and an updated team photo. The system is what lets both stay consistent across years of hiring.
Every new hire comes to the studio
When Phase Financial adds someone, that person comes to the studio for a short session. There is no reason to book the whole team, because nobody else needs to be photographed again.
One gray backdrop for every individual
Each person is photographed on the same gray studio backdrop. That frame becomes their individual headshot on the team page, and it matches the people who came before them.
A textured background for the group
The team photo is a composite. Each individual portrait is placed into one group image on a textured charcoal background, so the team reads as one photograph rather than a grid of squares.
Rebuilt with every hire, to a written standard
The composite has been rebuilt after each of at least eight new-hire sessions, and updated whenever someone has moved on. The lighting placement and power, camera and lens, framing, camera position, background and retouching standard are recorded, so someone photographed this month matches someone photographed two years ago.
Four versions of the same photo
Shown from the smallest team to today's. Same background, same light, same finish, which is why the newest faces sit beside the earliest ones without a visible seam.
The individual headshots
Every new hire is photographed on the same gray studio backdrop. These frames run on the team page on their own, and they are the source for each person's place in the group photo.
Live on the firm's team page
The current composite leads the Meet Our Team page on Phase Financial's own site, above the team's individual headshots.
“He spent time with each of us to make sure we were comfortable and could be ourselves which allowed him to capture great pictures. We were able to review the results on site. 10/10 would highly recommend!”
A team photo for a team that keeps growing
If your practice hires steadily, the group photo should not be the thing holding the team page back. Each new person is photographed once, to a written standard, and the team photo is rebuilt around them.
Related work and services
A Northwestern Mutual practice in Clayton whose team photo has been rebuilt with every new hire for about two years, from six people to fifteen.