Canva moves into stock photo market by buying image libraries
Australian graphic design platform Canva has moved into the stock photo market following its acquisitions of free content sites, Pexels and Pixabay
Canva has billed the new service, Photos Unlimited, as a “Netflix-style” subscription model that will challenge traditional stock photography services.
Canva CEO Perkins unveiled the new service billing it as an ‘all you can consume’ product
The Photos Unlimited service, will offer “all you can consume” subscription access to a library of an additional tens of millions of premium stock photos.
Melanie Perkins, Canva’s CEO and cofounder, said about the new service: “We believe everyone should have access to great design ingredients for their visuals; this is why free content will always play a central role in Canva’s vision of democratising design.
“Together with Pexels and Pixabay, we’ll be able to help people discover a whole new world of amazing, fresh content. With over 1 million images downloaded over 500 million times on their platforms combined, both Pexels and Pixabay have proven that there is a huge demand for free, quality content from small businesses, social media marketers and others — not just from designers and companies with big budgets.”
Pixabay cofounder Hans Braxmeier added: “The vision of Pixabay is to become the Wikipedia for free media. Therefore, community has always been our core focus and a testament to our continued success at Pixabay.”
Content from Pexels and Pixabay will be discoverable in Canva, and free to both subscribers and non-subscribers under a Creative Commons licence.
Perkins concluded: “There’s never been so many people with a need for great photography. We’re incredibly excited to profile the Pexels and Pixabay community of talented contributors by having their work seen, loved and used by millions of Canva designers around the world.”
Perkins concluded: “In this day and age, professional photography can make or break a design.
“At Canva, we believe everyone should have access to all the ingredients needed to design – and not just for the few who can afford it. With these two announcements today, we’re empowering everyone to communicate their ideas visually in the best way possible – the potential is limitless.”
The stock photo market is a lucrative one, with the likes of Getty Images, Shutterstock and 123RF battling for marketer dollars.
