The use of photography in graphic design had its birth way long ago, back in late 1920 decade, when Herbert Bayer, after leaving Bauhaus school, where he was the teacher of  “Print and advertising Workshop”, started to study the interconnections between “advertising science” and psychology.
He started then to integrate photos in his work, with montages and screens, in order to give more dynamics and expressiveness to his creations and make of them what he called “an architectural framework“.
Those really were first photo montages of graphic design history.

In our days, with the use of computer graphics the use of pictures in any kind of job is a must.

Recently I’ve read an article in a blog that stated: “it is useless to spend a lot of time in Stock Photography websites to search for the right shot while you possibly have a nice camera and you can do the shot yourself”.
I personally STRONGLY disagree with this point of view.
Unless you are an experienced photographer yourself, I firmly believe that a paid job is not the moment to make experiments and play with the brand reputation of your customer!

An image in a website, in advertising or any other printed composition is never just a “shot”.
It has, in a first instance, the task to grab attention.
It has then to engage, beautify, tell a story, create desire, and all of this it must be done being consistent with the image of the brand.
To make it short “it has to sell”.

Your photography necessarily must be “professional”: if photography misses the mark, your brand message will be diluted, if not damaged!
After you’ve spent so much time brainstorming about a message that compels, it must be supported by compelling imagery.
Notice also that if you need your image for printing, professional quality is necessary to guarantee quality reproduction.
Never think customers won’t notice it: they will, whether consciously or not.

Furthermore, if you use photos with people you NEED to have the Model Release, a legal document signed by subjects portrayed, that grants you the permission to use and publish the photo.
I have read a lot of times on various design groups on Usenet, both about people that got into trouble because they used a picture without legal permission and others that were bragging about suing others because they used one of their shots, so, I always use professional stock photography.
A thing you have to know, however, are the differences between various kind of licenses:

• Royalty Free is the most common and affordable license type, often called just RF. As the name says, you can use the image purchased as many times as you want without paying an additional royalty. They have usually good prices, that may vary according to the company of your choice. The only downside is that these images are not exclusive.
• Rights Managed license (or RM) gives you exclusive (but time-limited) use of a stock image. This means that if you buy this kind of license you are the only one to use the image in the period specified in the contract. Photos can be used only for one project and for a period of time, sometimes even only on specified geographical areas. This is an expensive licence, but it protect you brand from competition using the same image.
• Extended/ Enhanced licenses. Not every company offers this kind of licenses, which extends the use of a previously licensed work. You have thus the permission to increase the printed copies featuring the image, to use it for resale purposes or for other method of distribution. It is advised to carefully read the contract, as uses allowed vary from company to company.
• Subscription. This is pretty new, it is not available everywhere also, but this kind of offer is quickly expanding. You pay a monthly fee, often choosing among different price plans, and you can download a set number of photos of your choice. This is probably the best deal if you have to download images often. As a plus, you usually have no limitation about the use.

Here are the stock photo companies that, to my opinion, offer the best value for money:

Getty Images

Probably one of the most famous and one of the first to offer licensed images, since 1995. According to what they say, every months about 4 million people utilizes their website. You find there award winning images, illustrations and even videos and music. Their new offers are The Flickr and the Vector collections.

Thinkstock

A great offer for a great value. They have subscription plans that allows you to download up to 25 images a day in a database that has millions of images.

Jupiterimages

Another huge collection of photos of famous photographers and a lot of niche collections. They often propose discount. Actually you can have 10% discount with the promo code in the home page.

To finish, some sample images from these websites:

Hi people. Here I am again after more than a month of isolation (I’ve had to change my pc and requested to my ISP an upgrade of my ADSL – wich I never received).
First of all I want to thank all of my readers, that kept on visiting this website in search of new articles.

The one I’m going to publish today was written before my old pc broke.
I admit it is not a fresh news now, however, when I wrote it I did it a lot of research, and you can see and read here things you can’t easily find somewhere else. I think I did a rather good job. Any comment is always appreciated.

Some days ago (it was 25th march when I was writing) I received from Citroën itself the email you can see in the screenshot above (Who told them I need to change my car?).

Here it is its message:

“CITROËN REINVENTS ITSELF.

CRÉATIVE TECHNOLOGIE.
Creativity and technology. Innovation. Ecologic performance. These are our proofs.

CITROËN is a strong culture.
CITROËN is a relationship.
CITROËN is ambition.
CITROËN is a vision.

A brand is a promise. A great brand is a kept promise.

Discover New Brand Image”

An impressive message, I admit it.
Last line of it lead to flash website www.creativetechnologie.com.

To celebrate the 90th anniversary, the motor manufacturer has not only redesigned its logotype but completely aims to reinvent itself. After enduring a difficult period the brand flourished stronger than ever starting from 2000 and currently is the third-largest French automobile brand.
CITROËN now introduces the new course with this website to its customer (well, even to potential one it seems).

Prepare yourself: website is quite heavy even if you choose the low broadband version, however, it really worth to see its videos about rallies, innovation and ecology (I’m not sure if they are available in all languages).

Showroom, which are a key factor in managing relationship with customers, have been completely redesigned, a new series of cars, the DS series, is about to be launched starting from the upcoming Geneva Motor Show and it is said that 6 new models will be introduced in next 3 years.

Talking about what’s strictly related to us, new identity surely is a good upgrade of the previous one.
Logo typography has some sci-fi and futuristic trait, but really leaves nothing to chance and it’s like its newly acquired soft curves makes a perfect match with the soft pronunciation of the name of the brand.
I am a bit puzzled, nevertheless, about the 3D rendered design of the 2 chevron.
Beautiful, no doubt about it, probably designed to appear prominently on new media, but I’m old school, and I’ve always known that a good logo has to look good first of all black and white, so I would like to see how it prints in a fax too.
Just curious.
I am pretty sure Landor made a perfect Corporate Identity Manual with all possible version of the logo, even a 2D one for such uses.

For those who wants to know a little history, these are the milestone of the brand and two chevrons:

• in 1919 André Citroën founded the brand and released the Type A. The iconic chevrons made their first apparition on the radiator shell, to reference Citroën’s early work on double helical gears, however, official logo was a blue and yellow type;
• a badge with the graphic of the Type A radiator shell was made and Citroën gave the French government 150 000 branded road signs bearing it;
• The Traction Avant range of 1934 abandoned the double-chevron badge. Its production bankrupted Citroën;
• André Citroën died in 1934;
• Flaminio Bertoni designed in 1955 the famous two chevron logo recently redesigned by Landor;
• In 1985, official colors was changed: from André Citroën’s preferred blue and yellow to red and white.

A 1920 image with the first logo. Andrè Citroen was the first to use the Tour Eiffel as a giant billboard.

The 1934 Citroen Traction Avant that almost bankrupted the company

It is possible that my couple of reader will think that I am a soft drink addicted now (if so I Would never tell, LOL), but surely I couldn’t let this news unnoticed.

Coca-Cola launched about a month ago a limited edition design for the Coca-Cola Light bottle. And a very coool and eye-catching one, I have to say.

Bottles have been styled by Natalye Rykiel, daughter of the talented end eclectic French stylist Sonia Rykiel, ex model, actually art director of the family griffe.

Rykiel’s creations mark the 20th anniversary of Coke Light and the 40th year of her mother’s fashion house.

Lovely colored Diet Coke bottles are customized according the typical style of Nathalie Rykiel, the same way some time ago was done by Roberto Cavalli and Patricia Field.
Cavalli embellished 300,000 bottles with three of his typical animal prints.

Patricia Field edition (the designer became famous because she was the costumer of “Sex and the City”) had four color designs, that aimed to represent some aspects of a woman life: Career (gold), Love (pink), Passion, and, naturally, Fashion (the light blue bottle).

Nathalie Rykiel collectors bottles are sold at Monoprix and Grand Epicerie de Paris for 1,25 Euros (about 1,60 USD) but in EBAY there already is collector war, and there are some sold for 15 Euros and more!

Visit official Coke website presentation of the design HERE.

Some time ago UnderConsideration introduced the new design of the Tropicana packaging, a brand of the Pepsi Company.
The new bottle showed a cold, anonymous big picture of a glass of orange juice with plain sans serif typography.
Article ended the commentary with “I really want to believe that the screw-cap will not be an orange-colored boobie as in the rendering above”.
I couldn’t agree more.
That half-orange shaped cap was not only ugly but probably difficult to use too. (The one above is the initial rendering, at the end of the post the two real bottle compared)

YES.
I’ve said “was”.

New packaging arouse hell in all designers communities, and after a brief test period Tropicana has decided to return to its old packaging.

Let’s face the truth, with redesign it lost his identity: it was not
anymore the fresh fruit bursting with juice that made us all eager to drink.It became a plain product in a glass. Like anyone else.
There’s more.
Maybe this loss of quality in packaging was even perceived as a loss of quality in the product itself in the usual consumer too?
It may be.

Am I unfair?
I mean…I’ve always liked clean and sleek designs and this design is not bad in itself. Really.
Problem is that those that made the redesign forgot that this brand
has his history and his (strong) personality, and in their eagerness
to reach kids, moms, dads, grandpas and all in between cleaned up
and cut too much and in the end made it just…floppy.

So…what’s next now?
Will we see an update of the rejected design, an update of the old
one, a completely new one or we’ll keep on see the old beloved one
for years to come?

Last time Air France updated its logo was about 25 years ago, back in 1975, but a lot happened since that logo revision and the company has managed to become one of the largest and most recognized airlines in the world.

The previously French government-owned company was transformed into a private corporation called Groupe Air France. On May 5, 2004, Air France merged with KLM and officially became Air France-KLM. This merger created the largest airline in the world in terms of operating revenues, and third-largest in passenger kilometers.

After so much growth it was a time to renew the brand identity to reflect Air France global direction.

Air France hired BrandImage to execute the redesign.
Curiously, one of the main steps of the redesign has been the union of the two word of the brand name into one (a bit of confusion or the start of a long run strategy?).
It has to be said that typography and colors are very beautiful, they produce a more sophisticated aesthetic and really worth the upgrade.
The old stripes are gone (useless), and in their substitution there is a new simpler ribbon-like icon.

When in 1933 Air France was formed, it was a group of airlines that associated together to form the initial company.
At that time, as their primary insignia, was chosen the logo of one of those companies, the Air Orient sea-horse logo, which official name became the “hippocampe aile”.
As part of the updated brand identity, the hippocampe aile was transformed into a wireframe and will likely be used as a backdrop behind the new logo.

Watch this video that introduces the redesign of the brand from AirFrance itself:

Air France Re-Branded – New Logo Identity on Video.ca

When in 1970 John Pasche designed the famous Rolling Stones logo he was paid only £50.
He got 200 more two years after from the band as a bonus, so much they were pleased with it.

That logo, created for the album Sticky Fingers released in 1971, made music history and now Victoria and Albert Museum in London has bought for £50,000 (which means 92,500 USD) the signed original artwork sold by author with an auction.

Pasche says that he took inspiration for the logo from the rebellious spirit of the band and sexual connotations of Mick’s mouth. He designed it in a bold graphic style so that it could stand the test of time and he wanted it in an easy to reproduce shape.

Increasing success of the logo led, in successive years, to copyrights issues on two fronts:

• the mark needed to be registered worldwide because other business started to use it for their own products;
• a further agreement needed to be drawn between designer and the band for the merchandise.

The designer continued to create artwork extensively for the band until 1974.
This led him to work for Paul Mc Cartney, the Who and many other artists.

Actually this logo is one of the most famous in the world, a real icon of the pop art culture.

Ever since I was a child I’ve always loved it.
So colorful, so powerful, so direct.
But, most of all, it really was, (and still is) “ONE” with the band itself, a perfectly merged symbol.