Stock images are cheaper than ever and access to creative commons material is great, but often not available in print resolution. Having your own stock photography is better – and easy. I show you how.

This will be quiet short and is more a reminder.  Yes a reminder – I want to remind you to take some more pictures for your stock library while you are taking photos for your private albums.

How many times have you bought a wood texture background or a crowded place or a busy street? I have many times. Once I needed a picture of Picadilly Circus, nothing fancy, but all the photos I had where with some of my friends in the middle. I lived in London for 6 month and have not taken one picture of the place except those “tourist” photos.

So remind yourself when you are on vacation or on a business trip – take a few extra pictures with the eye of the graphic designer. You don’t have to have the greatest gear to take good pictures , but you need a little bit of practice. A blogpost over at Boagworld actually tells you how to make unique stock photos for your website

And most important, tell your wife/girlfriend/friend why you are taking pictures of the floor, the wall and the scenery without them on it. The photo of this post for example was shot on my old balcony during a bbq session – perfect for various uses, don’t you think?

So go out and take the lens cap off (as they say in the TWIP Podcast)

Browsing the web I’ve discovered IncSpring - a site who claims to sell:

Full Brand Identity Packages – Logos, names, domains and more for sale by creatives around the world.IncSpring

It’s a creative description of a stock-agency for logos, domain names, and brand names. The prices are accessible (ok some are too high), the logos well drawn, the site nicely designed. So do I recommend it? Yes and no – there are a few hiccups:

• A brand is more than just a logo/name/domain combination, much more
• Most logos are just presented in the colour version (RGB!!), no negative or single color version
• You just get the logo, not a corporate design – and have no option to “upgrade”
• The names are obviously not personalized, you label yourself
• Some names sound nice, but you don’t know if they are already registered – and if I pay 500-2500$ for a logo and name I want to be sure that this name can be used in my country in my industry.

Recommended for a company? Probably not.

At first I would recommend it for very small firms who don’t need a full blown corporate design and just want to get a name and logo from the shelf. But when I think that this company probably is not aware about the brand registration regulations and may get in trouble.

A small to mid-sized company needs in my opinion more than just a logo/name/domain combination – and for 2500$ you can find a easily a local designer (or on the internet) who gives you a personalized service. This way the company gets a name which tells their story and they can endorse. At the end they have to live with it.

Recommended for graphic designers? Don’t know..

As an art director or graphic designer the opportunity to sell a free work is quite nice. I would want to know how many visitors has the site, the average selling price and the legal stuff – how about payments to designers outside of the USA. If you have lying around some logos and can come up with a nice name you can try to sell them here. But I would not (like specialized stock-photographer do) create content specially for this portal. I think this time could be better invested in getting direct clients. Getting direct clients will allow you to enter business through a logo design and continue working on the rest of their communication – long term relationship is the keyword here.

So you should decide for yourself it is worth trying. I will scan my libraries and give it maybe a shot – will keep you updated.

I’ve recived an email from Getty Images telling me, that they will stop selling Images under the “Rights-Ready License”. If you never heard of this license don’t bother – though it was intresting.

It was a mix of Roalty Free and Rights Managed Images. In short. You bought the rights for an image based on its use (like RM), but you can reuse it for that use as long as you wanted (like RF). Getty describes it like this:

Rights-ready (RR)
Rights-ready products may be used for the particular use and the project and end client specified at the time of licensing. When you order a rights-ready product, you will be asked to submit information that specifies how you intend to use the product, and the project and end client for whom it will be used. Pricing of rights-ready products is based solely on the use of the product that you select. You don’t have to pay any additional royalties if you reuse rights-ready products for the same use for the same project and end client specified at the time of licensing.

It was paired with combo uses like Print+Web and the prices where affordable. The image quality was somewhat better then standard RF, but not as good as standing out RM-photography. All in all not a bad deal. But it seams the model didn’t work out.

They announced that some features of the RR-Licensing will be transfered to the Rights Managed Licensing – let’s see, I will keep you updated.

I’m sure you are using IStockphoto, it’s a great site and makes our work so much easier. But be aware that if you buy credit in advance they will be valid only for one year. I knew that and bought 600 credits a year ago for our firm. After a year you cannot be sure anymore when the will expire and IStockphoto doesn’t send you any notice.

So mark the expiration date in your calender – maybe mark a few weeks earlier so that you won’t lose them, like I lost 201 credits.

Update 18/12/2009

I’ve been contacted by Istockphoto, they are watching the blogsit seems, and they reactivated my credits. They postponed the expiration date. Great costumer service – so if you get close to the expiration date and have a lot of credits it might be a good idea to contact their customer service, they may postpone it for you as well.

Update March 2010

The famous expiration emails don’t work with the corporate accounts.