You want to take a part of it and flip it or manipulate it or put it with another picture and another and begin to create a unique, personal composition.

Arguably, good royalty-free imagery is a direct result of the way computerized graphic design has vastly expanded-- in essence liberated-- graphic design from traditional strictures. You are out there doing marvelous, creative things with these new tools, and constantly finding fresh ways to incorporate photography into what you do..

What is most interesting to us (as image providers) is that you designers are experimenting with a kind of visual polyphony (to use a classical music metaphor). That is, in addition to traditional homophony where one central theme is supported by all else (think of Beethoven’s Fifth), you are increasingly creating a visually polyphonic approach: Several themes, or even many themes, all with equal weight and import, are interwoven in marvelously supportive ways (think of the Renaissance masses of Palistrina.) It’s a bit of this, a piece of that, all masterfully stitched together into a powerful visual whole.

The increasing reservoir of royalty-free imagery is making this kind of multi-image composition (where, indeed, the image is often used not so much for it's "story-telling", but, simply, for it's graphic substance) both possible--and affordable.

We’re loving this, believe me.

And we’re also reacting to it. While "Rights Protected" stock photography is moving towards those powerful, central visual themes that you then build around, Royalty free is moving towards the "bits and pieces", the backgrounds and elements and objects that you need to create your "visual polyphony".

Most designers are finding that they need-- and can make superb use of-- both rights protected story-telling images as well as adaptable royalty-free pictures-- often within the same project. Go to: Why Savvy Art Directors use a Combination of "Rights Protected" and "Royalty-Free"-- and HOW]

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