I need an honest opinion..

Ok so I've been in business for around 2 years, granted it has mainly been part time until this year when I decided I wanted to move forward and give this a true go, I think I posted a few months back about my situation..

Anyways I've been torn for the past couple of months on how to proceed with the branding of my business. Previously I did mainly automotive, some event photography and action sports stuff. Earlier this year I moved into more music photography, portraits, and I'm starting to gain traction with my wedding business.. I want to move more towards portraits/weddings and the music thing just because it is a passion of mine, always has been and most likely always will be.

The name of my business as it stands is Redline Photography, an obvious choice for when doing automotive and action sports stuff.. not so much now. I've had a few people tell me that it still passable for portraits/weddings but honestly I don't see it, I guess it's about the branding I suppose. So I've been debating on whether to start an offshoot company on paper or another DBA for the wedding business either under my name, or another name. My third option is to completely rename the business and just do everything all under one name, the downside is that I lose the recognition of what I currently have unless I find a way to bring it all together somehow.

So I've come up with a couple of different names, reserved the domain names and filed DBA's for all of them just to cover myself when I do finally decide.. So I wanted a little input from you guys on which way to go, the names are below..

Redline Photography - keep for music and event stuff (or keep everything here)
Aphex Photography (pronouned Effects) - Solely wedding/portaits or complete rebrand
Timothy James photography - Solely wedding/portaits..

How would you guys approach this?

I would keep Redline and make an offshoot of that...

Like - Redline Photography - with a subhead Weddings and Portraits, etc... There are quite a bit of "Redline" photography companies out there on google, they all yours? IF not, that might warrant a name change.

Aphex - If you have to stop to figure out how to say it or if you have to explain it to someone, then you have already lost them. I would pass on that one.

I was never a fan of using your personal name as a business name unless your name has a hook to it to make it marketable. Mine doesn't. Yours could work though, its got a nice flow to it.

As a wedding and portrait photographer, Aphex doesn't appeal to me at all. I don't know what it's supposed to mean, I'll never remember how to spell it, and that means I'll never remember your web address.

Redline is great for automotive. It can work for weddings and portraits. It's memorable which is half the battle. You just may want to revisit how you logo it so that it's reflective of your approach to this kind of work.

If you stay with one name, however, I would tell you to create multiple sites or maybe a splash page. Brides have no interest in hiring an automotive or band photographer.

Just my $.02.

Peacefield wrote in post #11045144
Redline is great for automotive. It can work for weddings and portraits. It's memorable which is half the battle. You just may want to revisit how you logo it so that it's reflective of your approach to this kind of work.

That's where my struggle comes in, my current logo is somewhat in the middle but I still say it's a little more geared towards the 'grungy' look. I've been trying to figure out a clean logo that will work for both sides but I haven't come up with anything yet.. I really don't want to do automotive stuff anymore, it's just not that appealing to me.. it never really was, I just had an easy in due to the fact that my father is president of a large classic car club around here.

I dont see Redline as being restrictive if you just adapt your promotional materials. If you dont think of it as a an automotive term, and a lot of people dont, then its just like any other name. Start using a thin red line as your watermark, redo your busincess cards and promo materials with a reinterpretation of a red line. The Aphex (pronounced Effects) is like the ONEders from that movie nobody is going to pronounce it right. Going with your name is a good choice if you totally reboot, but I would just pivot with the name you have.

I agree with the above statements. Redline if branded right could easily be used for weddings. You could use red lipstick as a starting point to brainstorm. Or again like stated above a red line. Maybe use a red ribbon in the wind for the effect. Aphex could be changed to Afex, little more catchy and easy to understand but still not great. Timothy James photography is too long and doesn't flow. TimJamesphotography flows better but I don't know if you go by Tim so it might not work either. Branding takes a lot of time, creativity and effort to come up with, so don't get frustrated if you don't figure it out right away. Take your time and make it work.

Aphex automatically makes me think of Aphex Twin (I'm probably not alone in this either) which isn't the desired effect you want.

Yeah I guess it's really only in my head... I own the domain name redlineweddings.com, I think I might just have my main site have a splash page with a link to both sites one for music/portraits the other for weddings... any thoughts on that?

That sounds like a great idea. Let them see all your talents and more dimensions of your work. Showing your a well rounded photographer not a one trick pony. It might even help you get more referrals for both sides. Maybe try it out and see how it goes.

tjames wrote in post #11045176
but I still say it's a little more geared towards the 'grungy' look.

It doesn't have to be defined as grungy; it could be viewed as edgy, or maybe having an urban flair. If that's going to describe your approach to the art of wedding photography, it could fit very well.