Susan Jefferson

A friend of mine has been 39 for the past seven years. They aren't ridiculously vain nor are they delusional or prone to chronic wishful thinking. But they are useless at managing their professional online presence. Now, I'm not talking Facebook. That's Corporate Headshot regularly updated. Yet the same effort is not expended on their professional networking sites. So their LinkedIn profile sports a pixilated selfie taken years ago by a long dead 'phone and their company website portrait hasn't been updated in years. This friend is in regular employment and they're not actively looking for a new job, so why does it matter if their profile is out of date? Teamwork : 300 million professionals use LinkedIn. Even if a few are looking for a company that sells a difficult to find widget or service, that's still a huge number of potential customers. And guess what? Your 7-year-old profile picture gets featured on the company's LinkedIn page. Great: you've j...

Princeton University recently published the results of work modelling first impressions from 1,000 photographs. Not only did the researchers discover that perceptions of trustworthiness, attractiveness and dominance were entirely predictable but that earlier work at Princeton discovered that 'first impressions' were made within milliseconds of seeing a portrait. Perhaps more worryingly, staring at the picture for longer only re-inforced first impressions. The commercial implications are clear: we are visual creatures and in today's connected world, often the first impression we make is through our portrait on the firm's website. What image is right for your target market? It is tempting to believe that smiling broadly creates a warm, approachable impression. In some cases it does; but is it appropriate for the whole team? Often 'camera smiles' are forced; necks and shoulders are a little tense and seeing an uncomfortable smile on everyone's face can create t...

From fashion to art, literature to music, style means different things to different people. Often intangible but always obvious, style can be usefully defined as: "A distinctive manner which permits the grouping of work or image into related categories." From a practical perspective, we can use style to convey messages about ourselves and our businesses. We simply have to engage the cognitive faculty of our audience with grace and beauty that clearly communicates our clarity of vision. We’ve broken individual components of style from four recent commissions to demonstrate how this can be achieved: Andy Hamer is CEO of Codebook International :  a software firm providing business solutions to architects and facility managers. Creating an open consultative feel was important for an organisation whose customers’ approach to business is relaxed but professional. Expression is relaxed and confident. Head is balanced and upright, being neither aloof nor 'over-friendly'. Glas...

Making portraits of female clients is an honour but also a bit daunting. Women balance several roles simultaneously; sister, mother, lover, daughter, friend and of course professional businesswoman. It makes them complex creatures and a challenge for the portraitist needing to capture character. Creating a professional portrait is even harder. The image has to communicate professionalism without losing personality, capture elegance without losing authority. "clients make unconscious decisions based on your portrait." Despite our best efforts we all make unconscious judgements based on appearance. Recent Princeton research found that first-impression judgements were made in milliseconds and reinforced the longer portraits were viewed. You probably have a LinkedIn account: clients, employers and colleagues will be making unconscious decisions based on your portrait. So, for professionals of both sexes your portraits are vitally important. "identity can only provide clues...