
Show HN: Glaze – Illustrations for Products and Presentations - chamza
http://glazestock.com
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pixelmonkey
I prefer to source mine from @HumansOfFlat on Twitter :)

[https://twitter.com/humansofflat](https://twitter.com/humansofflat)

Here's my favorite recent offender:

[https://twitter.com/HumansOfFlat/status/1184867036679327744?...](https://twitter.com/HumansOfFlat/status/1184867036679327744?s=09)

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pengstrom
I honestly can't decide if it's making fun of flat design or promoting it.
Poe's law and all that.

~~~
ciex
It’s being angry at a design trend in a very twitteresque way that leaves
little room for explanation

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vertis
It looks very cool. I like the "free with attribution" to "premium" model
you're using.

As an aside, I really don't understand the other people in this thread linking
to competitors. It feels a bit rude on a Show HN.

"Here is all this hard work I did" "Great, I love X competitor"

~~~
NKosmatos
Perhaps they’re just trying to be helpful to other HN users? Before this post
I didn’t know any of the sites posted, now I’ve got a few ones I can check
out.

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vertis
Yeah, that makes sense, it still just make me cringe a little.

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fimdomeio
Don't use this year style trend if you want to make your brand recognizable.
Also you'll have a problem next year because it will look dated.

I had this issue coming up a lot when I was doing more graphic design
projects. Never really understand why small clients really wanted to look like
everyone else. I always thought the aproach should be the oposite, the lower
the budget the bolder you must be if you want anyone to remember you.

~~~
vertis
I can see why small clients want to look like everyone else. Or I would guess
look the same as bigger brands. It looks professional. They don't want to
stand out in a bad way, so it's safest to go with the already established.

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somada141
Personally I find these gorgeous but I’ve seen some scrutiny on HN for apps
that use such illustrations. I’ve considered using them for my app, still in
alpha release so I haven’t felt confident to post here yet, but I worry usage
of stock material may bias people to feel the app isn’t original cause the
illustrations aren’t.

That being said I expect that people outside the tech-space wouldn’t be
exposed to such designs often and would find then as lovely as I am :).

Have I misread the sentiment?

~~~
guptaneil
You’re right that people outside of HN are far less likely to recognize these
are clip art. Also for an alpha release, your priority should be making sure
people want your app, not the landing page. Early adopters will look past
stock art if you’re filling a need.

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iandanforth
I'm not sure I understand the demand for stock-anything.

When I need an image, illustration, or icon I need it to be one or more of the
following:

1\. Accurate

The image or illustration depicts a real thing or process I care about and it
needs to show that clearly. It's unlikely that stock photos and illustrations
will meet that bar. Unless the rest of my content is about a well known or
generic topic my imagery is not going to be widely available or generic.

2\. On brand

If I'm adding visual interest, color, flare, whathaveyou to a page and the
exact content doesn't matter, then the styling and emotional tone do. More
specifically they need to be coherent across my entire
site/presentation/product. In addition this content needs to be helpful to a
viewer to remember my specific property. My brand can only be diluted by using
assets which are common, off-tone, or not fully integrated with a recognizable
and memorable look and feel.

3\. Repeatable

For any media I create and want to maintain I have to think about how hard
it's going to be to change it in the future. If I find a great image or icon
or illustration I need to know that if I need the source modified or
reproduced with a slight variation I can do that. In practice, that usually
means having continued access to the artist who produced the asset. Their
style will come through in any project and maintain the coherence over time
that allows for iterative rather than drastic change.

Convey information, build a brand, build a repeatable process. Stock feels
like a self-defeating trap. Sure it looks nice, and for arts sake it can be
desirable, but for any business or professional communication purpose it seems
to entirely miss the point of having media in the first place.

~~~
devilshaircut
It should be obvious but, limitations, whether they be related to time,
budget, or other resources, make stock assets desirable.

For instance, commissioning a custom icon set rather than picking one off-the-
shelf is a luxury only some projects will have access to.

Additionally, oftentimes stock assets function as good placeholders until a
larger budget comes into play. Suppose you are working on a video game and
waiting for environmental assets to be complete; in the meantime, a sample
texture may do.

In a perfect world, perhaps every font, icon, illustration, photo, or texture
would be bespoke to its exact application. In the mean time, we have stock
assets.

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fredley
Clip art for the 2010s (2020s?). I love it!

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gitgud
Nice site, the only problem I have with the content is the _Flat-Humaans_
style, which seems to becoming extremely popular with start-ups and is pretty
over-used. I'm not sure I particularly like the style anymore either...

It reminds me of Ikea instructions, which are meant to purely convey the
procedure of assembling furniture with no emotion. But when you're describing
your business you want to evoke emotion right?

Ironically, these cartoonish _Flat-Humaans_ convey no human emotions at all.
They feel like a wall of propaganda of what the company is telling you how the
product/service will function (much like war propaganda)...

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nlh
Well done! I like the style and artwork.

Can you share how the business model for this sort of site works? I’ve seen a
ton of this style (Unsplash, etc.) and always assumes it’s based on AdSense or
similar.

Is that the case here?

~~~
chamza
In our case (Glaze), we are using a simple freemium model. The assets are free
to use as long as the user attributes the illustrator and Glaze. If the user
wants to buy a license so that they can use the image without crediting the
artist/glaze, they can pay for that license (they also get a larger file size
and the source file).

Unsplash is a bit different, all of the images are completely free. From my
knowledge, this was originally used as a marketing funnel for their parent
company, Crew. Crew has since been acquired and Unsplash has spun in to it's
own entity. Nowadays my hunch is that they are monetizing through calls to
their API (Unsplash is integrated into big players like Squarespace, Trello,
Medium). Feel free to fact check as I am no expert when it comes to Unsplash's
business model.

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Hoasi
What if you don't need generic images?

If you want illustrations that add value to your business, how can you hire
the illustrator or designer to do a custom job? It is not clear if the site
lets you do this—which would be great.

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Zaheer
This style of illustration (pastel colors, abstract shapes, etc) has been
quite popular lately. Anyone know which designer originally came up with this?
Also is there a term for this style of illustration?

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verdverm
Some of these look super similar to content on
[https://ui8.net/](https://ui8.net/) (another source for images like these)

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sunasra
Nice! [https://undraw.co](https://undraw.co) has good collection as well

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thesheikh
Wow. This was super clutch for a mockup I am doing at work. Thanks to whoever
did compiled this resource!

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egypturnash
Huzzah! Another company asking me to work for exposure! Yay!

