The looks-cheap audit

Open your listing, your website and your Instagram grid side by side. Score one point for every line that is true. Under twelve, the product looks cheaper than it is.

The pack floating small in a big white square, or cut off at the cap. Cheap listings look cheap because nobody cropped them.

Fill the frame. Same margin on every image.

One font on the pack, another on the post, a third on the website. Three fonts read as three companies.

Two typefaces, everywhere, forever.

Muddy phone-photo shadows and yellow indoor light. Premium brands have clean light and one shadow direction.

Shadow direction is a brand decision. Pick one.

Nobody can tell how big it is, so it feels like a gamble. Expensive things get shown in a hand.

One in-hand shot removes the doubt.

Your red is a different red on every post. The eye reads that as a small, disorganised company.

Write the hex codes down. Use only those.

Crops first, because it is free. Then colours and fonts, because it is one page. Then light, because that one needs a system.

Most brands can fix three of five in a week.

Open your own Instagram grid and your listing side by side. Squint. Does it look like one brand? That is the whole test.

Comment AUDIT for the scoring sheet.

• The product fills the frame in every image
• Margins are the same across images
• At least one image shows the product in a hand
• Nothing is cut off at the edge

• No more than two typefaces anywhere
• The same typeface on pack, site and posts
• Text on images is readable on a phone
• Headlines are six words or fewer

• Brand colours are written down as hex codes
• The same red, blue or green appears everywhere
• One shadow direction across all product images
• No yellow indoor light, no grey muddy shadows

• The grid looks like one brand when you squint
• The listing and the website use the same hero image
• The ad matches the page it lands on
• A stranger could name your brand colours

Crops first, it is free. Then colours and type, it is one page. Then light, which needs a system.