About Our New Look
It’s an exciting day at Shutterstock! We’re thrilled to unveil our new logo and visual identity, the result of months of development and a sign of our commitment to creativity and innovation.
This video shows some of the potential built into our new logo.
What you probably noticed first, after our dramatic color change, is something special going on with the “O” in Shutterstock. We call it the Viewfinder, and it’s there to allow us to showcase our vast, constantly updating collection of amazing images and videos. The Viewfinder symbolizes the artistic empowerment of Shutterstock customers and contributors to express their unique perspective – whether they’re behind the lens or in front of the screen.
Shutterstock is almost 9 years old and the one constant in our history is evolution and reinvention. We like to keep what makes us great and improve upon what doesn’t. Over the last year, we have been challenging ourselves with the tough, thought-provoking questions that a good branding exercise is all about. Who are we? What do we value? And what do we really want to communicate? In the end, we wanted a visual identity that reflects those beliefs.
At the core of our company values is the belief in the democratization of design. Over the last two decades, there has been a dramatic shift in how people and businesses value and approach creative work. Today the power of design and creativity is recognized and appreciated from boardrooms to classrooms. Shutterstock was born out of that revolution.
Our new visual identity is just the beginning of exciting new things from our team, and we sure hope you like it! If you want to read more about our process and insights, I’ve shared some highlights after the jump.
Still reading? Great! The team is thrilled with the new visual identity system we developed with help from our very talented friends at Lippincott, and we hope you are too! We think there’s a lot to like here – from the “O” as a “Viewfinder” that lets us put our contributors’ content up front; to our bold, two-color design. We fell in love with the modern typeface, the bold color, and our ability to activate the identity in an endless number of ways. This identity reboot is about the ideas, just as much as the visual aesthetic. Here are five lessons we learned and some of the challenges we tackled.
1) Content is King (or Queen).
From the outset of this project, the entire team agreed we wanted to put the work of our contributors front and center. We’re proud to host such an amazing and dynamic collection – and it’s growing by over 10,000 images a day! We challenged ourselves to develop an identity that presented a compelling way to showcase images and videos. Ultimately we found the Viewfinder to be an elegant solution for putting creative work at the forefront.
2) Don’t Invent a Brand, Find it.
Below, you can see the Shutterstock logo through the years. During our most recent branding process, we asked ourselves a pivotal question: Do we want to be revolutionary or evolutionary? The implicit question was: Is one better than the other, and which is right for us? Shutterstock revolutionized the stock industry with our subscription model and simple, transparent pricing. But when it came down to it, we are a content company that connects image creators with image buyers. That is not something we are looking to change, so we took some of the ideas from our original logos, but broadened the concept beyond photography to encompass all of the content in our collection including, vectors, icons, videos, and more. Here is a look at how our logo has evolved since our inception.
3) It’s Not Easy Leaving Green.
Nine years is a long time. When Shutterstock launched, it was the only stock image company with green as its brand color. In truth, leaving the green wasn’t so hard, but finding just the right color to advance the brand took some soul searching. In the end, passion (and Pantone 485) won out. It’s an exciting time to be a photographer, designer, developer, illustrator, videographer, or storyteller. We wanted to make a bold statement about our passion for our creative community. Nothing says passion like red.
4) Find Focus.
Another aspect of the Viewfinder we love is its ability to highlight meaning in an image. It works for capturing a moment in time or a detail that changes your perspective. Flowing from that idea, we pride ourselves on being a cutting edge tech company, and search is a big deal here. We have a vast collection—now over 19 million images!—but it doesn’t matter if you can’t find what you’re looking for. We develop cool image discovery tools so you can find that perfect image fast and focus on being creative.
5) Never Stop Evolving.
This is an exciting time in the history of our company and we couldn’t do it without you and the rest of the Shutterstock creative community. Whether you’re a loyal subscriber, one of our talented contributors, or a friend that likes to stop by occasionally for a little dose of inspiration, we hope you enjoy this next phase of our visual direction. Keep your eyes open for more updates — this is just the beginning!
Thanks for being part of the Shutterstock community,
Matt Angorn
VP • Creative Director / Shutterstock
