Harrods

The launch brought a curated group of design houses together under one boutique inside Harrods. Fragrance, ceramics, paper lighting, woven textiles. Each one arrives with an established look of its own, which is the whole problem. Shoot them the way each brand shoots itself and the boutique reads as a corridor of other people's advertising.

So the launch imagery gives every object the same room instead. One warm key light kept low and raking, a surface palette of terracotta, unglazed clay, stone and raw linen, and a hard limit of three objects to a frame. The houses stay recognisably themselves and the boutique still reads as one place with one point of view.

Nothing is shot on white. A cut-out says the object is stock. A room says somebody chose it.

What was handed over is a short set of shooting rules. Key light angle and height, three approved surface families, a prop list with a ceiling on how many objects may appear, and a crop library for shelf, web and social.

It was written so a studio in another city could follow it without a phone call. That is the only real test of a content system.