The results of the Graphic Design USA annual stock survey are now available online.
Check
it out. Be sure to read the extensive comments of Graphic Designes that provide some important insights into what image creators should be producing, and stock agencies should be doing to provide better search ability of their collections.
One of the comments that struck me was that a, “major theme” of the results “is that stock visual offerings increasingly reflect the way contemporary Americans look and live. A consistent critique of stock imagery has been that it lags behind, and often glosses over, the diversity and fluidity that characterizes 21st century society.”
It is very interesting that stock imagery has an “American look” when a very high percentage of the new stock images (I suspect a significant majority) are being produce in Europe, particularly Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union and South Africa. Either these creators have figured out how to produce “American,” or as the world gets smaller there may be fewer differences from one culture to another.
I will try to dig into more of what this report has to offer later.