Alamy has announced that it will add vector graphics to offering as part of its strategy to provide a full service to image buyers.
The company is launching with a collection of 500,000 vectors from leading suppliers including YAY media AS, Matthew Britton and Pavel Konovalov. They aim to expand their collection rapidly over the next 12 months adding new content from their existing contributors as well as recruiting more specialists.
Vectors are great for designers, because they are scalable and can easily be resized without altering the quality of the image. If you print a vector logo on a small sheet of paper, and then enlarge it to billboard size it will keep the same sharp quality.
Vector demand has been growing rapidly. When Shutterstock went public they reported that in 2011 Vectors represented
32% of their downloads. It is believed that percentage is growing. Vectors also sell at a much higher rate than photos. Currently, vectors make up about 12% of Shutterstock’s 32 million image collection. Alamy has more than 44 million images in its collection, including creative, editorial, live news and video.
Ned Selby, partner at New Future Graphic agency said: "Vector graphics are a cornerstone of many of our design processes and it's great to know that Alamy now offer them as part of their vast image library. They’ve made licensing vectors straightforward, with a simple flexible package of rights at one price."??Rachel Wakefield, Alamy head of sales said: "We’ve been building our portfolio for the creative market and, when we talked to our customers, vectors was an obvious next step. It’s an exciting time, our content is getting more diverse as we continue to add new products - in the last two years we’ve added Live News and Video. And we’ve made it really easy to buy as well – one simple transaction whatever the media.”