Explore creative projects,
trendy visuals, and insights
on visual communication

Being inspired by the works of photographers stuck on quarantine, we decided to launch a #LockdownArt campaign to support our artists and contributors. This project was designed to motivate artists to stay creative in a time of crisis.

The campaign resulted in over 1000 submissions from 70 artists in different corners of the world. The best works were gathered in a special collection and shared with millions of Depositphotos clients to promote #LockdownArt

It has never been more fascinating to work on the visual trends project. World events and the pandemic have greatly influenced every sphere of our lives, including visual communication.

With the 2021 Visual Trends Report, we were challenged to uncover a completely different roadmap for brands and content creators. We collaborated with the Depositphotos content team as usual, but also reached out to creative professionals representing international agencies. Experts from Droga5, Your Majesty, Design Bridge, and other studios complemented our project with their unique insights, and helped us outline where visual communication is heading in the near future.

We hear the word “authenticity” applied to stock photography so often, but how did that happen? The story on the evolution of stock photography aesthetics takes you on a journey from staged studio shots to candid photography in just a few minutes. It puts everything that has influenced these aesthetics in the span of 10 years into context.

The key outcome of the project “Stock Photography Then and Now” was to outline the new aesthetic of today, and to highlight how selecting more natural, artistic, and unusual photos can boost any project or business.

Music is almost universal in terms of inspiration. For this reason, we thought it would be fascinating to see how artists could recreate classic record covers, and pay tribute to the works of iconic artists from the past.

The project launched in 2018, and it brought together 19 artists to re-imagine world renowned record covers. The submissions included remakes of artist covers from The Beatles to Sigur Ros, and Aladdin Sane to Kid A.

Some projects are born through proposals that come from outside of Depositphotos, as with this unique and fun collaboration. Israeli musical duo Cherie and Renno contacted us to see if they could use hundreds of cat images for their music video – Meow!

We’re always up for collaborations, and this project was a great opportunity for us to work with an interesting theme. Our content department carefully selected cat images from the Depositphotos library and compiled a special collection. Cherie and Renno then assembled these visuals into a really fun, engaging, and certainly thematic music video.

We’re here to debunk the stereotype that stock photos are boring. You might think that all hope is lost with certain images, but sometimes, manipulating them can do wonders.

What also inspired this project was our knowledge of how truly versatile the Depositphotos library is. You can find anything you need to realize an idea. We browsed the library to select a series of boring stock photos, which our designer skilfully turned into TV show posters for “Stranger Things”, “Mr. Robot”, “Game of Thrones”, “The Walking Dead”, “American Horror Story” and “Narcos”.

Movies are an endless source of inspiration for many, and the Depositphotos creative community is no exception. Anticipating the 2018 Academy Awards, we reached out to our contributors for a fun project on the topic.

We asked them to recreate posters for our Oscar-nominated movie predictions. Illustrators showcased their own interpretations of movie posters for “Arrival”, “La La Land”, “Rogue One”, and “Deadpool”. As a result, their works were featured on DesignTaxi and other media.

In addition to the annual Visual Trends Report, our team creates complementary projects that narrow down popular themes in different fields of visual communication.

Graphic Design Trends is a project that provides a closer look on styles, color palettes, typefaces, and aesthetics that we’ll spot in the upcoming year. In 2021, trends focus on themes that encourage audiences to look on the bright side of life, and that make their routines more cheerful, not challenging.

As part of our mission to support artists and photographers around the world, we launched our first photography contest in 2020. The theme of the contest was “Authenticity 2.0”, and it invited both amateur and professional photographers to participate and win great gear prizes.

We wanted to explore new aesthetics on social media, and challenge photographers to define authenticity through their personal style. The contest was fully hosted on Instagram, and it encouraged people to share candid moments from everyday life – authentic, simple, and emotional. As a result, we received over 5200 image submissions from 1884 photographers, under the hashtag #authenticity_is. The longlisted works and the winners of the contest were assembled into a beautiful thematic account @depositphotos_contest. 

Do you remember the buzz generated by the iOS 14 update? It seemed like the obsession with customizing home screens was universal among iPhone users. The trend was swiftly gaining traction, so we decided to use this opportunity to spark some creativity.

In 2020, we launched the #homescreenchallenge – a Depositphotos contest for designers. It encouraged creatives to design custom iOS icon packs, and enter the chance to win an iPhone 12 and other amazing prizes. The best submissions were assembled into a special, free collection, and shared with millions of Depositphotos clients from around the globe. 

Every year is a new discovery when it comes to visual trends. We study many fields in visual communication that involve our community of photographers and content curators. For the 2020 trends, we reached out to a wider pool of professionals, including international creative agencies, to come up with a holistic vision of what to expect with visual culture in the coming year. 

The result was a unique research experience, where we shared ideas and exchanged thoughts on new tendencies in visual communication. We took a futuristic route and called the project “Visual Trends 2020: Think Ahead”, elaborating on ideas, styles, and themes that would help creatives stand out with their projects.