I do a little graphic design work for fun, which of course means that I get boatloads of spam from companies selling stock photography, fonts, and various odds and ends. I've managed to eliminate most of the really awful stuff, so most of what I get is high quality, if generally not of much use. For example, the last week consisted of a rather remarkable run on coffee mug mockups. These are Photoshop files that let you take your graphics and project them onto a mug, as viewed from any of a number of locations, including full or empty, on the desk or in the hand, or even in an attractive gift box. It's how you market designs without the expense of having to actually make the mugs. Last week, for some reason, I got about ten of these, including various sizes, materials, shapes, and other characteristics. As I said, they're all very well done, but I'm not really interested in selling mugs this week.
There are also vast numbers of templates for dance clubs, bars, sporting events, etc. You basically fill in the appropriate names and dates and print off a few hundred to get hung on bulletin boards around college campuses and bus stops. The quality of these range from mediocre to unspeakable, but they probably accomplish the desired result and at almost no cost. I've got these packing off to my spam filter.
In between lies the stock photography. About a decade ago, there was a stock photography model who ended up in every computer ad for every company on Earth. She became known as "everywhere girl" and was eventually located in real life, where it turned out that she was a college student who made a couple of hundred dollars one day having about a thousand photos taken of her using various computers, carrying them across campus, sitting in classrooms, etc. Ironically, she was completely unaware that she had become an internet sensation.
If you have a need for a one-off photo, there are many services that can sell you one, with the appropriate rights for reproduction (please don't just grab them off the web—that's a good way to get sued). If you are going to do a series of ads or if you are doing a presentation, you might want to get a number of related photos, either of the same style or the same people. These come about a dozen at a time with titles like, "Excited Interracial Business People", which is a group of young, mixed race and sex professionals demonstrating more enthusiasm in a business meeting than would normally be expected. There are also healthy numbers of "Attractive dark-haired woman with perfect skin and makeup". Sets such as these are available in every imaginable combination of ethnicity, hair and eye color, makeup or natural, and range from prudish to mildly titillating. Women outnumber men about ten to one in these sets, which is indicative of something.
Today, in the utterly non-titillating line, I received an offer for fourteen photos of a "Happy girl in a pink dress with balloons is standing on the background of the waterfront". Indeed, there is a blonde woman, whom I would consider to beyond the age of "girl", being in her late twenties, wearing a long pink dress and standing on large rocks that look like a breakwater jutting out into the ocean. She has long hair, is wearing what appears to be a tiara, although I suspect that it is a hairband of some kind, and she has a bundle of about a dozen balloons of the same color as her dress. The balloons are not inflated with helium, so in a couple of the pictures, she is holding them above her head. In all but one of the pictures, she has a rather vacuous smile, with the exception being one in which she is blowing a kiss. There is no conceivable erotic value and with the possible exception of anti-psychotic drugs, there is no possible product that you could imagine using these to sell. Although well-exposed, they have no artistic merit and it's really not possible to think of any potential use for them.
This is a perfect example of a product without an audience. I am almost tempted to buy the set to use in a presentation on building a product without doing customer research. I believe that it falls within 'fair use' to show you a tiny version of one of the photos, just to provide context.
Should you think of a use for this set, I'd love to hear it. Also, suggestions as to how she got out onto those rocks in that dress would also be appreciated.
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