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THE RISEOF THEVISUALCREATORS
Nearly one trillion photos will be taken in 2014 alone, equal to a quarter of all the photos snapped in the first 170 years of photography’s existence. From retina-resolution selfies to lo-fi cityscapes, this body of content
is not just more abundant, but also more diverse in subject matter, style, and authorship than ever before The visual creative explosion is the result of a perfect alignment of human ingenuity. Affordable picture-taking devices have made us all photographers; expanding data networks and aesthetically-
minded social platforms have made us all publishers and audience members. But we would be remiss to give technology all the credit. Technology is the spark. The will to create, innate and distinctly human, is the oxygen.
The Rise of the Visual Creators is a collection of ideas about the scale of the visual creative explosion, the people behind it, the tools they use and the fascinating marketplace that has emerged as a result.
Since our early human ancestors depicted their lives on cave walls, be-fore the first words were written, we communicated through pictures. In fact, text alphabets began as pictures and morphed into modern letters over thousands of years.
As such, when we consider the visual creative explosion, we’re talking about something for which there was always a human desire. Art has been present in “all stages of civilization and in every region of the world.” 65% of us are visual learners, and 50% of the human brain is devoted directly or indirectly to vision.
Whether the urge to express ourselves and absorb in-formation visually originates somewhere within our bi-ology is a question that has been explored by everyone from Darwin to modern neuroscientists, but regardless of its genesis, it’s clear that the urge has been part of the human story since time immemorial.
Technologies, in this context, are modern means to ancient ends: visual expression and communication. While devices and networks connect us to each other functionally, the content we create, share and experience across them connects us emotionally–especially when that content is visual.
MODERN MEANSTO ANCIENT ENDS
OX !HEAD!
EARLY GREEK!ALPHA!
LATER GREEK !ALPHA!
ROMAN!AH!
PHOENICIAN !ALEPH!
In broadest terms, the visual creative explosion is the inevitable result of widespread and profound improvements to our capacity to connect and create. Zooming in a bit, we see barriers to entry being lowered as the “friction” that normally accompanies creative output
withers away.
The digital universe–operating systems, the web, and mobile–began with text. Text is visual by defini-tion, but aside from text-based art forms like callig-
raphy and experimental typography, text is usually not visually expres-sive to the same extent as art forms like painting and photography.
Digital became truly visual relatively recently. Images are taking center stage everywhere we look, and the web is changing to accom-modate the way we, as a society, contribute and experience visual content. This is inevitable, and overdue.
It’s our hope that in the rush to extract business value from the abun-dance of visual content creation, we never lose sight of this simple, abiding truth: Behind nearly every piece of visual content, there is a person, a story and an audience.
50% of human brain devoted to vision!65% of humans are visual learners!
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By Ian Greenleigh, Director of Marketing
“Digital became truly visual
relatively recently”
65% of humans are visual learners 50% of human brain devoted to vision
Modern alphabets began as pictures
QUANTIFYING THEWILL TO CREATE
While the will to create is nothing new, the size and velocity of the visual creative explosion is.
This year, 123 photos will be taken per every person on Earth. In 2000, that ratio was 14:1. In 1996, it was 9:1.
In May 2013 it was estimated that 500M images were being shared per day. One year later, that number had grown by 260% to 1.8B images shared per day; 75M photos an hour, 1.25M photos a min-ute, 20.8K a second.
One of the primary catalysts for this massive growth in creation is the advent of the smartphone.
In 2009, only 11% of all picture-taking devices were smartphones.
In 2014, there will be an estimated 2.31B picture-taking devices sold, and for the first time ever, over 50% will be smartphones. From 2013 to the end of 2014, analysts are projecting a 23% year-over-year increase in smartphone sales.
But devices are only part of the story. Instagram, launched in 2010, has stayed true to its original mission of making “mobile photos fast, simple & beautiful.” Other mobile-first visual platforms followed suit, and in 2013, all of the eight fastest-growing mobile apps in the world were visual in nature.
Instagram has amassed 200M users, who generate 60M photos and receive 1.6 billion likes per day. From 2013 to 2014, Instagram adoption
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“In 2009, only 11% of all picture-taking devices
were smartphones”
By Zach Pontz, Manager of Content Strategy
jumped from 13% to 17% of online adults in the U.S., while cura-tion-centric Pinterest rose from 15% to 21%.
Facebook and Twitter were not originally visual platforms. Early Twitter was powered by SMS (mobile text messages) to such an ex-tent that they “produced a monthly bill for the company approaching six figures.” Today, tweets with image links get twice the engagement rate of those without, as well as a 35% retweet boost. Perhaps most tellingly, eight of the top ten most favorited posts of all time contain images, led by Ellen’s famous Twitter-crashing celebrity selfie.
After adding photo galleries in 2005, Facebook quickly became a de facto visual platform. By 2011, Facebook had catalogued 10,000 times as many photos as the Library of Congress. The latest public figures peg Facebook photo uploads at 350M per day, on average. Photos earn 87% of brand page interactions.
Even the top brands on Instagram are absolutely buried by the visual creation capacity of consumers. For every photo posted by the most followed brands on Instagram, hundreds or even thousands of branded photos are posted by consumers.
The story these numbers tell didn’t begin with Instagram, or even the first camera phone. They simply tell a new chapter in a story that stretches back to the Brownie camera, and really, to Gutenberg’s printing press. Humans build tools to express themselves better, to reach more people with what they create, and to empower others to do the same. 4
0%
17% 15% 21%
2013
2014
13% 17%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
“By 2011, Facebook had catalogued 10,000 times as many photos as the Library
of Congress”
Top apps by growth, Q1 - Q3 2013
Instagram and Pinterest adoption
5,565!!!
FASHION!916!
!!
BEAUTY!3,875!
!!
CE!2,351!
!!
CPG!
4,929!!!
LUXURY!1,556!
!!
JEWELRY!218!
!!
TRAVEL!
Vine
Flickr
Skype
YouTube
146%
130%123%
115%
111%
110%
109%
403%
For every photo posted by top brands…
…customers post this many
VISUALCREATORPROFILE:LEXI CROSS
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Lexi Cross arrived in New York City in 2011, an ambitious newcomer to a city that absorbs such people by the thousands every day. Inspired by those who, like her, were trying to make their way through the city, Lexi started the blog New York Called, which has today become a popular digest about New York transplants. Lexi not only runs the blog, but is also a successful digital marketer for Lulu Frost. I spoke to her about personal projects both new and old, digital media and fashion. Zach Pontz: Hi, Lexi. So what inspired you to start New York Called? Lexi Cross: I was working in retail, meeting a lot of inspiring designers and creative peo-ple who sold their brands at the store. They would come in and check on their product merchandising, sales, etc. and I’d have the chance to briefly chat with them. I noticed a lot of designers were transplants like myself, and had similar per-spectives to “making it” in NYC. I started visiting their showrooms to learn more and ended up posting interviews and photos to my blog. The photography aspect of these interviews is essential to storytelling. Taking pictures of process – sewing, drawing, etc. – helps communicate these people’s journey in a very authentic way that is relatable to my readers. I’ll use the photos on the blog and on social media to spread the word. Without high quality visuals, the story would be far less impactful. ZP: What gear do you use? LC: I use a Canon Rebel T2i for all of the photographs up on the blog, but obviously Instagram is huge and I take those photos with my iPhone in the moment. The Canon allows for higher quality
photos to use when I post the long-form story and the iPhone allows for short-term content distribution. I’ll snap a photo during an interview, up-load it to social media in real-time and tag it as “#comingsoon.” It creates anticipation and a behind-the-scenes look – a little peek at the exciting story to come. ZP: What’s been the benefit of having a tool like Instagram at your dis-posal? LC: With Instagram, the most powerful thing is discovery; both being dis-covered and discovering other people. I can find out about talented peo-ple that might fit perfectly with the story I’m trying to tell, and so it ex-
pands my community and gives me a broader cross section from which to choose. Friends will comment and tag me on accounts of people they think I should interview, or I will see a person I previously featured post a photo with someone new and intriguing –
someone I may want to follow and spotlight next. And it’s a great way to spread the word. I use #NYCalled consistently when posting content that is blog-related. This creates a story in and of itself. ZP:These photo-sharing platforms are empowering creatives such as yourself, right? LC: Totally. I attended events for New York Fashion Week this past weekend and I feel like Instagram has become the new business card. You meet somebody and tell him or her your handle; they can look you up right then and there and you’ve immediately forged a connection with somebody new. ZP:Tell me a little more about its influence on the fashion industry as a whole. LC: It’s everything. It’s a way for brands to communicate their message;
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“Without high quality visuals, the story would be far less impactful”
it’s a way to identify new trends; it’s a way to discover new influencers, stores, fashion labels, etc. What’s most interesting to me right now is how Instagram is being made more shoppable. That obviously influenc-es the consumer side of things. I think this trend will become hugely important in the next six months. I’ve already seen how valuable tools like Olapic are when it comes to customer engagement on ecommerce sites. Overall, it’s really visual inspiration and the ease with which peo-ple can access the industry that’s caught my attention. Fashion events and shows are no longer for top fashion influencers – everyone is an industry insider…just check your feed. ZP: What other visual creators do you look to for inspiration? LC: I really like people who use consistent visual messaging to tell a story – those accounts that have a very recognizable aesthetic day to day. Whether it’s using all black and white images or a specific stand-point (literally) – take @viewfromthetopp, for example. She captures images from above – her feet wearing cool shoes atop patterned rugs. I can always rely on those types of accounts for inspiration. I just start-ed a handle called @shoesofnyc with a friend and it’s sort of the same thing - we’re photographing shoes in NYC accompanied by quotes from the people who wear them. Shoes say a lot about a person and people can come to us to discover new sneakers or heels they might want to purchase, or just read interesting insights from other shoe lovers. ZP: What sort of advantages have these platforms given young cre-ators? LC: It’s allowed them more immediate access to an audience. I inter-viewed this designer Becca, who is behind a brand called Chromat. She makes these very unique bra tops, and when I interviewed her I bought one of her pieces. I was out in LA a few weeks later and a woman ap-proached me and asked me if I was wearing Chromat; she then started
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explaining to me how she knew the brand through Instagram. I mean – this whole world of digital communication comes full circle!I have another friend, @blairz, who has blown up, partially through Instagram. She’s a super talented fashion illustrator and tags ce-lebrities or brands in paintings inspired by them. Celebrities will, in turn, repost and tag her. It’s really viral and I truly think people can grow their careers by utilizing Instagram in the right way. ZP: Is there any strategy you’ve found to be particularly effective? LC: I don’t think there’s any one best practice. Some people believe photos should be shot with high quality digital cameras and then posted later, they work in a much more fastidious way. Others take photos on their smartphones and then post them immediately. I think as long as the content is genuine, authentic and unique to the person/brand, people will find it. I think photo-sharing platforms like Instagram and Tumblr have really facilitated this.
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CREATORS, CURATORS AND GALLERISTS By Pau Sabria, CEO
Then in 2010 Instagram was launched, and the ideas we had about devices, visual con-tent, and social networks suddenly converged into a single, beautiful experience. It was an absolute Leviathan: 1M users in three months. 100M in 28 months. 200M in 41 months.Those 200M users post 60M photos per day. What’s to be done with all this visual con-tent–all of this raw energy produced by the rise of the visual creators? Well, for brands and retailers, the answer is also a monumental opportunity.
Take, for example, the more than 100M pho-tos tagged #food on Instagram. That’s an astronomical amount of authentic and com-pelling content created around a consumer good. Chefs, restaurateurs and a whole host of industry professionals can (and do) use it in a variety of ways to influence potential cus-tomers and communicate their messages to the world.
Companies across the spectrum are beginning to understand this. We recently wrote about how major tech companies such as Google and Yahoo/Tumblr are racing to analyze user pho-tos for “clues” about brand affiliation. Brands and advertisers are eager to get this data,
WIRED recently devoted an entire issue to the thesis that smartphones have sparked a creative explosion, a proposition I couldn’t agree with more. Yet I’d argue that this scope is limited. Smartphones have indeed created an explosion of content, but creativ-ity is only one dimension of this explosion, creators are only one benefactor.
Pick any of the current growth numbers Zach shared in “Quantifying Our Will To Create.” Five years ago these numbers were but a fraction of what they are now.
When my two co-founders and I incorpo-rated the first iteration of Olapic in 2009, we envisioned this growth—but at this rate? Never. We knew then that technolo-gies (smartphones, apps, networks) were the spark, the human need for expression was the oxygen, and a rapid rise of content creation was the inevitable result. People were communicating more; text-based com-munication, already popular, became more popular. But where there was real, palpa-ble growth was in the visual realm. Where before an expensive digital camera and a convoluted upload process were necessary to get a photo online, the smartphone now made it a more streamlined and accessible process. One needed to look no further than his or her Facebook timeline to realize that photos were beginning to rival text as modes of communication and expression.
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“What’s to be done with all this visual content–all of this raw energy
produced by the rise of the visual creators?”
to tell stories through the eyes of their cus-tomers instead of dictating an “airbrushed” version of that story to them.
I’ve heard many complaints that smartphones have not only sparked creativity but also its opposite, that an onslaught of noise is making it incredibly difficult to pick up the signal. The emergence of mediators getting the best of this content to an audience is where another real creative revolution has been sparked. To put it another way, a lot of the innovation in the visual content space involves conveying the best of it to specific audiences.
In the art world, artists produce the content, curators select and arrange the best piec-es for display, gallerists own the walls from which the paintings hang, and the floors upon which the crowds gather. Each step in the supply chain creates value, and each receives some form of value in return.
What’s clear to me is that we’ll need these curators and gallerists more than we can possibly know in the future, because visual content creation will continue to accelerate. We’re building a platform that transforms brands into curators and gallerists, to make sure the best of the visual content explo-sion reaches the people it should reach, at jaw-dropping speed, in ways that burst with value for everyone involved.
If you ask me, that’s going to take a lot of creativity.
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ABOUT OLAPICOlapic is the missing link between customer photos and product purchase. We increase sales and engagement for 150+ brands and retailers by integrating customer photos into the shopping experience.
Olapic is headquartered in New York City with offices in Cordoba, Argentina and London. For more information, visit olapic.com or email [email protected].
