From taboo to technicolour:
Samantha’s HIYA VIBES transformation
Samantha, aka The Period Princess, isn’t the type who blends into a crowd. She walks into a room with the energy of someone who has spent years translating complicated, stigmatised topics into something human and understandable. She is calm but bold, warm, funny, and gloriously direct, the kind of person who can say ‘vulva’ into a microphone without a single person in the room flinching.
But when it came to her brand visuals, there was a gap. Her work can feel both conceptual and deeply human, yet her imagery was limited to a few photos of her face and a handful of stock images. Nothing wrong with that, but it didn’t tell the whole story.
Samantha had been meaning to refresh her visual identity for a while, especially on LinkedIn and across her website. She knew she needed something that felt playful, colourful, thoughtful, and recognisably her, but she didn’t know what that could look like in still life form. That uncertainty is exactly what made her such a compelling HIYA VIBES client. She wasn’t asking to replicate something she had seen, she wanted imagery that reflected the real depth of what she does: menstrual awareness, neurodivergence, accessibility, education, humour, and a whole lot of permission.
It wasn’t just about creating something beautiful, it was about giving her brand a visual language for the first time. A language she didn’t realise she had been missing. A language she can go on to use across everything she touches.
Examples of Samantha’s new images. See more images -> here.
The Challenge
Before HIYA VIBES, Samantha told me:
‘I didn’t have any still life visuals that really felt like me or reflected the tone of what I do. I knew I wanted something playful, thoughtful, colourful, and rooted in the kind of work I do, without being too polished or corporate’.
All she had were a handful of headshots, which worked to a point, but didn’t express the conceptual and conversational nature of her work. For someone who sits at the intersection of science, storytelling, humour, and bodily autonomy, visuals matter, and yet nothing in the stock-image universe really represented the nuance and fun she brings to conversations about periods or neurodivergence.
She wanted images that felt bold but not cheesy, human but not clinical, colourful but not infantilising, playful but not flippant. Corporate visuals didn’t fit. Wellness-influencer blandness didn’t fit. Hyper-medical diagrams didn’t fit. She needed a visual world that could hold complexity, humour, reality, and clarity all at once.
In her own words:
‘I needed a different way to express what I was talking about, especially for things like LinkedIn, where it can all start to feel a bit samey’.
That was our starting point.
Examples of Samantha’s new images. See more images -> here.
The Vibe Definition
We began with the Vibe Check, a deep-dive that helps people articulate what they’ve felt for years but never said out loud. Samantha didn’t need tidy answers, she needed space to bring all the threads of her work into the room: menstrual wellness, neurodivergence, advocacy, accessibility, humour, and the desire to make taboo topics feel human rather than awkward.
In her feedback, Samantha couldn’t have been more positive about her experience:
‘The Vibe Check helped me get clearer on what I actually like and what feels right for me visually. The process felt really collaborative and helped me get out of my head a bit. I didn’t have to have it all figured out, Marianne gave it shape and direction. A lot of what I do is quite conceptual, it’s not product-based, so at the start I found it hard to picture what a still life version of my work would even look like. Because my niche is quite specific, I often find that stock images just don’t work for what I’m trying to communicate’.
And honestly, that all makes perfect sense. Her work lives in the invisible: hormones, cycles, brain chemicals, workplace culture, shame, and the quiet relief of finally understanding yourself. Still life photography isn’t an obvious medium for that world… which is exactly why it was the right one.
When she saw the report for the first time, her reaction was exactly what I hope for every client:
‘Marianne really managed to bring my ideas to life visually. The way she interpreted those abstract concepts into still life was so clever, and it made it feel like my work actually had a visual identity for the first time. It was exciting to see someone take everything I’d said and turn it into something visual. I really felt seen in the process, like the threads of all the different parts of my work had been gathered and made into something cohesive’.
She told me it helped her see her own brand more clearly, too, not because something new was invented, but because her existing brilliance was finally reflected back to her.
The Shoot
Once the concepts were locked in, I built her HIYA VIBES personal branding library based on the world we had defined together. Her props were deliberate: bold typographic cut-outs, cyclical shapes, bright fruit sliced open like metaphors, microphones, cue cards, post-it notes, everyday objects transformed into visual shorthand for the body–brain connection.
This wasn’t menstrual health wrapped in clichés; it was menstrual health made approachable, bold, fun, and smart. It was colour with purpose. It was taboo made talkable.
Examples of Samantha’s new images. See more images -> here.
Her neurodivergence set, the one she mentioned most in her feedback, became the emotional anchor of her library. Colourful yarn mimicked internal signals. Overlapping shapes created visual rhythms. Bright colours cut through the overwhelm that often defines neurodivergent messaging. It was conceptual but grounded, educational but human.
When I delivered her library, Samantha said she was ‘blown away’, especially by how accurately the neurodivergence imagery represented something she had been trying to articulate for years.
‘I’ve found myself coming back to those images again and again, and they’ve started slotting naturally into my content without me having to force it. They’ve given me a visual language for that part of my work, which I didn’t realise I was missing until I had it. It’s made it easier to talk about those topics online and given me more confidence in how I present them.’
To me, that’s feedback that captures the heart of this entire project.
The Toolkit
Alongside her library, Samantha received the HIYA VIBES Toolkit, a guide showing how to use the images across platforms with clarity and intention.
She told me:
‘I liked that it wasn’t overwhelming, it gave really clear suggestions for how to use the images across different platforms, which made it feel easy to get started. I also appreciated the examples of how things might look in use, I’m a visual person, and it gave me ideas I wouldn’t have thought of myself, and it’s made the whole process of putting the images into action feel a lot more intentional’.
As a visual thinker, the examples helped her immediately understand where her new imagery could live: LinkedIn, blog headers, presentation slides, banners, and the static face of her Instagram grid. She’s returned to the Toolkit multiple times already, using it as a reference point when updating new content.
The Outcome
The transformation was immediate, not theoretical.
‘I finally updated my LinkedIn banner, something I’d meant to do for ages, and now I’ve got something I really like and feel proud to use. I’ve also updated my Instagram grid, which really needed a refresh. I don’t use Instagram actively, but now the static page looks cohesive and intentional, with images that are totally personalised to me. I’ve also updated my blog covers, they look so much better now. Instead of relying on generic stock images, I’ve got visuals that actually feel like mine. I shared my first blog post on LinkedIn using one of the new images and got way more engagement than usual. It’s just made everything feel a lot more polished and more like me, without it feeling forced or overly curated’.
For someone whose work involves taboo-breaking, nuance, and humour, finding visual cohesion matters. Her new still life library gave her more than images. It gave her a brand identity that finally reflects the clarity and confidence she brings to her education and advocacy.
Examples of Samantha’s new images. See more images -> here.
Why It Matters
Samantha’s case study sits at the heart of why I created HIYA VIBES: to give people the visuals that help them communicate with clarity, confidence, and impact.
She told me:
‘I’d honestly never even thought of using still life images for my brand… I couldn’t quite picture what that would even look like. But now, having gone through the process and seen the final images, I can’t imagine not having them’.
Her images aren’t generic. They aren’t stock. They are personalised, cohesive, and unmistakably hers, which is why they’ve already transformed the way she shows up online.
When I asked if she’d recommend HIYA VIBES to others, she said:
‘If you want visuals that actually feel like you, and you want to work with someone who listens and brings loads of thought and creativity to the table, then this is the one. These images are just mine. No one else has them, and they help bring everything together in a way that feels really consistent and thought-through. I’m absolutely thrilled with them’.
That is exactly the outcome I wanted for her.
Ready to Find Your Vibe?
Whether you’re established, emerging, or still figuring yourself out…
If you’re tired of swirling ideas that never quite land…
If you want visuals that reflect not just your work but your inner world…
HIYA VIBES meets you right where you are.
Begin with the VIBE CHECK, see your identity come into focus in the VIBE DEFINITION REPORT, and walk away with a HIYA VIBES still life library + TOOLKIT that reflects the real, imperfect, becoming version of you.
Marianne
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