Four years ago when I bought my first DSLR, I barely knew how to use it, let alone had a CLUE what branding was.

My first website was a free Wix site with their own branding slapped all across the page, my colors were black and pink. Seriously, black and pink?!?! That's not even close to my personality! I had ZERO identity in my business, I just wanted to take pretty pictures – or think I was taking pretty pictures!

As I matured in my business, so did my understanding of branding. It was through observing great photographers that I learned exactly what a brand was, and that I was doing it ALL wrong.

In the spring of 2014, I bought Prophoto theme for WordPress, and attempted to build my own website. Talk about a disaster. I eventually learned, but the site was not me! It was close, but it looked messy, unprofessional, and just way too busy.

With some tweaking, a free template from a Prophoto designer, and Pinterest inspiration, I was getting closer to what I felt was a reflection of me in my brand.

Fast forward to this past spring. I'm an Academy student, so the second course that I took was the Branding class with Katelyn James. And man – did that course ever open my eyes to EVERYTHING I was doing wrong. It was because of that course that I finally decided I needed to find a professional designer who could build a site that was truly Loren Jackson.

After an early morning session of Facebook creeping (everyone does it, right?! I'm not alone in this?!), I came across Katie from KD Creative and KNEW this was the designer I needed to hire.

It was especially important to me that I found a designer who could understand exactly what I wanted without me fully expressing what I wanted. Up until two months before I contacted Katie, the only identity my brand had was my colors. It was the only thing about my brand that had been consistent for over a year.

The final push in deciding that Katie was my girl was that she specializes in female wedding photographers. She knows how important the client experience is for wedding photographers, and she completely took that into consideration when designing my brand.

After several email exchanges, and talks with my husband about this business investment, I asked where on the dotted line to sign.

Working with Katie was a dream. She took my ideas and made them a reality. Through countless emails, several revisions, and many texts with capital letters attempting to express my excitement through the internet, she designed the perfect brand for me.

Katie picked out little things that I didn't even know I liked and incorporated them. I now have a photography brand that is not only ME, but it's professional and attracts exactly my ideal client.

I especially love my +sites. Katie designed a client lounge for me (clientlounge.lorenjacksonphotography.com) and a couple's lounge (brantjana.lorenjacksonphotography.com).

In my little corner of the world, these +sites are what Justin and Mary would call “Purple Cows”. Inquiring Brides love that all the information they are seeking is neatly organized into one (PRETTY) place. And my LJ Brides ADORE their custom sites. They love the fact that they can share their love story, details about their wedding, a sweet thank you to family and friends, and their beautiful gallery all in one place. These +sites that Katie designed for me just add to the wedding experience I have the pleasure of giving to my Brides.

I couldn't be more excited about the fact that I hired Katie to design my website and blog. I recommend her to anyone who is seeking any kind of design support. Just the other day, someone asked about business cards, and you better believe I threw Katie's name into the hat. If I can send just one photographer who is seeking outstanding design work to Katie, I know that her referrals will exponentially increase because Katie is that good at what she does.