Stock images are too popular
I have an ingrained (possibly even genetic) aversion to stock images. Actually, not all stock: just the vacuous kind. You know what I mean: like the politically-correct, gender-balanced, racially-balanced, age-diverse ones where people are all smiling and pointing at a computer screen you can’t see. Ugh!
(Photo credit: istockphoto.com)
There are many reasons not to use images like this. I guess it’s okay in some situations — for example when you just want a smiling, attractive woman with a customer-service headset to reinforce that you’ve come to the right place for support. However, even these really don’t have to be stock images. One of my former employers used their own employees for such photos, almost exclusively, and it made the site much more real. And there are plenty of examples of companies that use photos of their own employees and get “realness” as a result. If I’m not mistaken, Title Nine does so except for certain things, such as underwear models (for obvious reasons).
However, one great reason to eschew stock: other people will re-use the same image. A famous example from a few years ago: the cover image of Head First Design Patterns was a stock photo that also appeared in a commercial for a feminine hygiene product.
This incident was actually pretty widely linked on the Internet at that time. So no one will ever make that mistake again!
Or will they? Witness: the cover of the MySQL 5.1 Cluster DBA Certification Guide, the xTuple Home Page, and the cover of the MegaRAID Management Suite documentation.
Interestingly, I ran across all three over-usages of this image in one day, completely by accident. Are there other places this image is used? I’d bet there are.
Who cares? Well, the images that go on the cover of your book, your brochure, or your website become part of your image. If someone else then uses the same image, they can (accidentally or otherwise) exert some control over what people think of your product or company.
If this matters — and it almost certainly does — you should just get some of your own employees, hire a good photographer, and go into your own server room (or beg a friend to let you into theirs) for a photo.
On the subject of image, I’ve just gone to a photographer for some new portraits of myself, and I’m also hiring someone to design a logo for Maatkit (for a new website, and for t-shirts to give away at the upcoming conference). I’ll post more about that later.
Your post reminded me of a local artist’s take on stock photos, which I found hilarious. http://www.nonoart.com/2008/02/21/fun-with-stock-photos/
You’re sample image is dead on… and in line with my thoughts exactly. There comes a point when stock photography becomes staged photography – and everyone knows it.
On the other hand, we ran a survey of some web site mock-ups to some prospectives in our industry and had feedback overwhelmingly in favor of the perfect faces and professionally photographed people in the images. One memorable quote in response to the mockup WITHOUT professional shots & models was, “Seriously, get some models.”
But our target audience is pre-college teenagers, so designers should also consider elements like that when they select their photos.
Use stock photography with caution I say… and some advice I would offer – never use the ‘Top result’ off a stock photo search. ;-)
I’m looking forward to more posts on Maatkit and your work with MySQL – congrats on the new job!
Brett Bieber
27 Mar 08 at 11:43 pm
Well, what can I say?
the people from xTuple and MegaRaid first tried separately to hire the MySQL employees we had professionally photographed, and when that didn’t work out, they teamed up in an attempt to buy our entire data center as well as our company photographer.
In short, we simply had to put a stop to it so we told them that it was ok to reuse our material. For their convenience, we made the photo available as stock-photo, much to their rejoicement.
(joking aside – we had a stab at using our own photos which didn’t work out for a number of reasons. Stock photos are a convenience feature, much like a takeaway dinner. Maybe not the best, but in many cases sufficient.
I’m hardly objective of course, but I think we did a pretty nice pick. I reviewed many, many stock photos, and it is unbelievable how many of them are truly crap. you will find many, many pictures that are clearly photoshopped: often a “server room” is photo of some black box duplicated ad-infinitum. You will also find a posed model duplicated to different backgrounds.
We settled for this photo because the image conveys a sense of openness – the woman is looking straight in the camera – and of being in control – all people are at ease and look happy. The people all look very real by my standards – very much in contrast to the suit and tie party peering at the laptop in your first sample photo.
Also, there is no way to really judge it, but the room looks real too, at least in comparison to the piles and piles of stockfotos I reviewed.)
Roland Bouman
28 Mar 08 at 5:50 am
I remember when Crutchfield and Circuit City used the same stock image in a home page lead image just a few weeks apart.
Clearly, both of these competitors had purchased the same stock galleries. It’s like a woman showing up at a party in a snazzy outfit, only to discover that someone else is wearing the same thing.
Tim McCormack
28 Mar 08 at 8:34 am
Back a few companies ago, we used our own staff in photos.
Shortly after doing so we ended up in receivership, so a lot of people featured no longer had jobs! As a result I believe we ended up removing a lot of the pictures, which caused some maintenance-pain.
A better example might be “hire your own models” rather than “use stock photos”, but that gets expensive.
Morgan Tocker
28 Mar 08 at 11:45 am
Using right managed images should solve most of these problems. You can choose exclusive use for your industry or even worldwide exclusive.
stock images
1 Feb 09 at 1:52 pm