Jump for Joy – the Visual Language of Stock Image Clichés

This girl I’m sure you’re familiar with: the Health-Happiness-Energy Woman. Dressed in white, she goes down to the beach, stretches out her arms, and JUMPS. She does this to express her joy of living, and, not infrequently, her love for algae smoothies. An odd creature if you would meet her in real life, but so common in the brochures, ads, websites, posters that surround you that you don’t even notice her. A stock image cliché.

All communication is based on some sort of shared references. Designers communicate with a visual language that’s meant to be understood by the recipient, often instantly. It’s no wonder then, that many marketing communication images are constant repeats, Plato-esque variations of the same ideal images – especially when representing abstract concepts: fun, health, stress.

The low cost of images from the gigantic stock image banks, and probably in turn the working conditions of stock image photographers (creating images for maximum usability for popular keywords instead of a defined brief, at low fees), mean that these cheesy concept images are everywhere. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, communicating through simple symbols – woman biting apple for healthy, grey-haired man with sweater over shoulders stroking a golden retriever for post-retirement healthy. It does get the point across instantly to broad target groups, even if those images are equally instantly forgotten. If you’re trying to differentiate your brand against competitors, obviously they’re very counter-productive …

… but easy as they are to mock, these stock image clones are also a reminder of how easily visual clichés are reproduced, and difficult the balance is between communicating well within the reference world of your audience and being dispensible, derivative, boring. There are a myriad of similar repeating images/visual elements in the sexier, slicker high-end part of the design world, that can be just as damaging to your brand.

The fascinating thing about stock images: you only really start to notice the Health-Happiness-Energy Woman when she’s taken out of context and multiplied, like in this post. Different models, different beaches, different oceans – the same jump. And you only really see the strangeness of her ways when you look at a picture that strays too much from your mind’s ideal image. Like this one, above: too heavily bent forward, she looks bound for the humiliation of landing face down in the sand. Now, she’s almost a little disturbing, her open mouth possibly letting out not a joyful shout but a mad scream. Another angle, colouring, pose might have instead tweaked even this quite hopeless image subject from cliché to readable-but-attention-grabbing. But instead, most photographers settle for slight variations of the exact same image.

Another thing, how can they all jump so HIGH?

You might also be interested in these posts:

1. The visual language of packaging in 2009
2. Visual Thinking as a Business Problem Solving Tool – A Couple of Useful Presentations

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