The 5 Most Overused Free Stock Images to Avoid Like the Plague
We’ve all seen them before. The same heads popping up over and over again wherever you look on the internet. Most of us have even used these pics once or twice ourselves before we knew any better. As a designer, the now infamous Unsplash models stick out like a sore thumb, in everything from web banners to fake testimonial profile pics (who’d have guessed that was a thing?).
Is it such a bad thing that these photos are so popular? Well, yes and no.
I know, Unsplash is such a useful resource. In just a few seconds you can fill that empty image slot in your design and it does’t cost you a cent. There are some instances though, where the perfect face for the job might not be the best idea.
While Unsplash and Pexels have a wide variety of images to choose from, the range isn’t quite large enough in some areas, resulting in overuse of particular shots. There are a few problems this can cause for designers:
- It can reduce credibility and trust in the product you are designing due to the fact that the people/customers/users in your design are clearly not real.
- It can cheapen your design. Not only is your client too stingy to take their own custom photos but they are also too tight to even pay for stock images. Mustn’t be doing too well!
- Viewers may not take your product seriously. Some of these photos pop up so often it has become a joke.
Let’s take a look at the pics in question
1. Happy daughter
Since this photo of a beautiful smiling woman in a red shirt was uploaded to Unsplash by Michael Dam in May of 2017, it has been viewed 141 million times. On average, the ubiquitous happy lady pic is downloaded by over a thousand designers every single day!
Dam’s photo is so popular it even features in a number of common WordPress templates, widening its distribution globally.
It’s a beautiful photograph of a beautiful human, but please, for the love of humanity, avoid this image at all costs!
2. Business Man In Bar
Is he a businessman or just a smartly dressed guy having a drink in a bar? He’s both of those things and so much more!
Model, Austin Distel is now one of the most recognisable faces on the web, having been downloaded over 5 million times and featuring in publications like Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Fast Company.
Commonly featured as a young tech founder or an avid mobile app user, Austin’s appeal is obvious. Hopefully Unsplash adds a few more tech founder-type photos to its arsenal before Austin loses all hope of anonymity.
3. Man before graffitied wall
The young man in this popular photo by Ayo Ogunseinde has featured as the fun-loving guy next door in countless fake dating app profiles. His ‘not-too-serious but not silly either’ expression makes this photo perfect for those time when you want to add fun and colour to design.
Downloaded hundreds of time daily, Ayo’s urban super-pic is incredibly versatile, but thankfully it now appears a few pages down the search results on Unsplash. Hopefully there it can get some much needed rest.
4. Neon Corridor
Nobody knows where this dreamy corridor leads, and maybe that’s the appeal. Viewed by over 200 million people, this passageway to the promised land was photographed by Efe Kurnaz in Barcelona, Spain.
Commonly used by tech companies and ad agencies it has featured in countless marketing materials about crypto and the future of finance. I’ve used it myself and don’t even regret it.
If I told you it was just a hallway under a football stadium would it lose some of it’s mystique? I hope so because this pic is everywhere.
5. Artist with mobile phone
The appeal of this photograph by bruce mars cannot be overstated. The pretty young artist taking a break from her work to check [insert app name] has been viewed by over 50 million designers and is used constantly!
As an app founder myself, I can attest to how difficult it is to find natural looking stock photos of people on mobile phones. While this is changing, at one point in time, this was one of just a handful of usable pics on Unsplash.
Is she really an artists? Is that phone even switched on? Only she and Bruce Mars know the answers to these important questions.
So there you have it, the 5 most overused stock images on Unsplash. They are all incredible photographs and the appeal is obvious. But, if you want your designs to have credibility and stand the test of time, avoid these images like the plague!
