The only thing more annoying than the hunt for royalty free stock photos is how vanilla they can be. They’re meant to be a ‘one size fits all’ visual resource. Now, while that sounds great in theory, it’s far from reality.

There’s one critical element of visual content that’s not taken into account in this train of thought. Style! Take jeans for example. How many of us wear the same kind of jeans, let alone the same way?

You’ve got:

➽The skin tight, wiggle yourself in them fit.
➽The hip hop, 4 sizes too big, sag off your ass fit.
➽The form fitting country crooner fit.
➽The high rise, pleated mom fit.

You get the point.

One person’s perfect fit is another person’s fashion nightmare. Our preferred styles of jean, the way we wear them, and the items we pair with them is dictated by our personal style.

Versatility is one of the reasons jeans have remained a wardrobe staple for decades now. They’re a staple that bridges cultures, body types and social class, but they certainly aren’t a one size fits all kind of thing — something any parent who has tried to buy jeans for their teenager has learned real quickly.

Alright, so I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent. It happens. Let’s circle this back around to style deficient stock photos.

Stock photos are the jeans of visual content. Using stock photography is one thing, seamlessly branding stock photography so it blends with your overall brand look and style is a whole other. It’s the difference between an image and an image that oozes signature style. [Read more…]

While the power of pictorial storytelling is magical we’ve got a long way to go before text is extinct.

Which means you better learn how to use fonts effectively in your visuals or you’re going to be looking straight down the barrel of obscurity.

TYPEFACE vs. FONT

Right out of the gate I need to clarify a common mistake.

The correct term to use when describing lettering is ‘typeface’ and not ‘font’.

Typeface is the actual character set. {i.e. Arial, Times New Roman, Century Gothic, etc}

Font is the specific size and style of a typeface.

For example: While Arial, is the typeface, Arial 10pt bold is the font. [Read more…]