How doographics stock photos help to improve your visual content
Rajendra Zadpe
A major reason why stock photography is so popular is that it saves valuable time and money.
You don't have to spend on professional photography gear, learn how to take high-quality photos or even deal with editing images. This is especially helpful if you’re a small team and visuals aren’t core to your business or product.
Even if you’re not taking the photos yourself and are considering outsourcing to a professional photographer, it still gets pretty costly.
Compare all this hassle with a ready-to-use, high-quality stock photo that you can simply download and add to your presentations, infographics, social media posts and other designs.
Another big advantage of using stock photos is that you have a lot of options to choose from. There are millions of free and paid stock photos out there, and you’re bound to find something perfect for your needs.
7 Ways to Use Stock Photos in Your Designs
Here are some creative ideas for using stock photos in your designs.
- Create thematic backgrounds.
Using stock photos in the background of your designs is pretty common.
But does it always have to be that basic? Not at all!
Whenever you find the perfect background image that’s in sync with your brand personality, think of how you can creatively make it look more than just a simple photo.
For example, you can add text overlays, color filters or graphic elements over your background images to make them look better and serve a purpose.
This also helps to tone down the image so it doesn’t distract your audience from the actual subject of your design. It puts your background image where it should be — in the background, subtly contributing to the overall feel and theme of your topic.
- Add personality to your headers.
Whether it’s for your landing page or infographic, stock photos are an excellent way to make your header pop and grab the attention of your audience.
Your headers are usually the first thing that visitors or viewers will see. Make a great first impression by using a relevant image that adds to the overall theme or topic.
- Spice up your borders.
A cool alternative to adding stock photos in your backgrounds is to use them as eye-catching borders instead.
Borders and frames not only give a nice look to your designs, but also make it easier for the audience to engage with your content.
- Use in mockups, storyboards and mood boards.
The thing about stock photos is that they make for excellent placeholder content.
If you provide creative services, for example, you can use stock images in place of real ones to give your clients an idea of what the final version of your design is going to look like.
Not only is this a budget-friendly way to get your work done, but it's also super effective.
Stock photos can also help you put together beautiful mood boards that exude a certain color scheme, emotion and overall look and feel.
- Design around the image.
Another cool way to incorporate stock photography into your designs is by integrating text and other elements into or around the stock photos you're using.
There's no single way of doing this, but it's preferable to find images that have free spaces in them to make this work.
- Style it with textures and patterns.
Another smart way to use stock photography is to add a texture image that gives your design depth, dimension and style.
Add filters and overlays to your texture images to provide more depth to your designs. If you’re using a pattern image, choose your fonts and colors wisely to seamlessly blend the photo in with your graphic.
- Make interesting collages.
Stock photos can be a great tool for creating interesting collages that add color and personality to your design.
You can choose the collage layout depending on the number of images you want to include on your website, eBook covers, presentations or social media graphics.
Be careful, though. It’s tempting to go overboard but using too many images in a collage can reduce the quality and visual appeal of your work.
Stock photography might be frowned upon in the design world, but can be a godsend if you know just how to make the most of it.
Instead of using stock photos as they are, be creative and play around with styles and effects to make them meaningful and unique for your designs.
Use Doographics to get a head start on your creative designs with templates and built-in graphic assets. Create a free account today and take it for a test drive.