Flat Lay, Away

Dolls, are you looking to mix up your feed? Add more content of your products or give your audience insight into your personal style? Flat lays are our favorite way to shine a little extra personality into our brand and we’re here to share some of our favorite flat lay tips!

Lighting Is Everything

Dolls, when I say lighting is everything, it doesn't always mean what you want to start doing is turning on all of the lights. A room full of light doesn't always make for a glowing setting. It may visually look great to your eye, but once you open your phone and tap the camera, you may start to notice a glare, especially with those overhead lights!

Now, as a luxury branding agency, we have every individual light on a dimmer here at POSH PR® to ensure the perfect overhead lighting for every photo.

If you're experiencing an odd yellow effect or high glare, sometimes shooting with the lights off is best! Let your editing process take over here. Our favorite app is PicTapGo to bring up the brightness and bring our flat lays to life!

Even better, you could always invest in some tabletop studio lights, especially if you plan to be doing quite a few product shoots or flay lays for your Instagram!

Dolls, remember when in doubt, natural light is always best. Be sure to avoid direct sunlight; again, we're trying to prevent any glare on our photos!

The Surface

The surface you flat lay on is so important; think of it as the backdrop for all of your content! When Caroline, our Boss Doll + CEO, built the Doll Dream House, aka the Doll HQ, she intentionally made the floors matte on purpose, knowing glossed floors create a glare. Matte surfaces are your best friend when it comes to creating the perfect flat lay! However, don't think you have to have beautiful marble countertops or white floors to create your ideal content! Before Caroline built the Doll Dream House, she went to an old stone distribution center and found broken pieces of marble to lay her content on top. So use what you have, Dolls! Textures can be your friend here, so don't be afraid to style on top of a rug, a piece of fabric, or your bedspread! When in doubt, a white poster or foam board makes the perfect white background.

Don't Let The Eye Fool You

What you see and what your camera sees are often two very different stories. So be sure to look into your phone camera when moving items in your flat lay around!

Don't Be Afraid to Think Outside of the Box (literally) and Outside of the Frame!

Empty space in your flat lay isn't always a bad thing! Allow a few products or items to fall out of the square. A common mistake when people start producing flat lay content is putting everything in the middle of the square with lots of white space all around. Visually, this doesn't look amazing, especially if you're creating a 9-square with your content. Don't be afraid to allow a magazine to fall off the corner, your arm to not be in the frame when holding your coffee mug, dolls, get creative here!

Money-Saving Styling Tips

In 9-years of business creating luxury content for various clients, you can imagine that we have quite a few props that we've collected here over the years. Saving props will save you money in the long run, but this goes beyond just keeping the glitter you used for your last shoot. Caroline makes the most out of her freezer by saving beautiful macarons she once used for a photoshoot and the donut circa 2013 covered in glitter. Food is a prop, and if you've invested in it, why rebuy it year after year for your Valentine's Day shoot. These items come in handy more often than you'd think! Whatever you invest in, save!

Boss Babe Storyline

Dolls, we don't know what it is, but people love a good desk shoot! Caroline grew her following by 7.5k in a year just by showing off her desk. Her big secret to the perfect desk picture? Diet Coke! Any photo you see from us of 'coffee' in a mug is actually Diet Coke! Coffee photographs almost purple, so here at POSH PR®, we keep mini cans of Diet Coke that fill a mug perfectly, wait for the bubbles to go down, and snap our shot! Be sure to create a storyline with your flat lays? What does your audience want to see, and how can you show it off!

Cheering you on always,

Xo Caroline + The PR Dolls