We'll be back soon...

We are off to FITC 2009 in Toronto so we are rushing to get next weeks free images up for you before we leave. They should be up some time today. We figured we'd puntz the free week by tossing some photos of peoples backs for the free images. A copout... maybe, useful... for sure!

See you at FITC if you are there. Drop by our booth and talk with us about the images you've been using and give us any feedback you might have.

Back at you next week.

FITC 2008... memory lane

We were just getting prepared for the FITC 2009 tradeshow and came across our ad from last year. Last year's FITC theme was "Break it". The FITC group suggested to advertisers to try and make ads that worked within the theme. We love a challenge, so took it on!

Our ad/concept was "IT'S FREE....THE INTERNET IS NOT BROKEN.... IT'S JUST CONFUSED... .TRUST ME". We came up with this tag line because we figured nobody gives anything away for free these days... We were giving away 500 Royalty Free stock images away. Yea... look at us now! We are at 2,000 free images. The INTERNET is not broken it is REALLY SCREWED UP. Why give 2000 Royalty Free stock elements away.... Why not! We want your love so we gotta share the love! (Wait that is this year's campaign)

This wicked ad for Stock-Archive.com was a great collaboration project we did with our amazing Algonquin College Coop students of 2008 which consisted of Steve Capyk, Joulian Tavalloli, Zach Flaman, Priyanka Singh, and Sahil Khanna. We asked them all to build some vector line art for our stock collection as part of their first week of coop placement. The day after they submitted their examples we put together an ad that was a mix of all the elements they provided. Each of these individual elements will be available on the Stock Archive site once we launch. This was a great example of working as a team and putting a mixture of styles together to make one amazing looking piece.

We are all big fans of Algonquin College as the entire staff that works at www.Stock-Archive.com

graduated from Algonquin. We don't have last years algonquin college website handy but we figured we'd give some support to the Design Grads of 09. Check out their work. From what I've seen it is pretty amazing. Some good potential employees here if you are looking. www.redhanded09.com

Better late than never...

Wow. This is some great work from one of our members who unfortunatly did not make the deadline to the contest "Share the love... ". We got an email from him the other day sending us a link of his .... "unfinished" submission. (Looks done to me and looks great!)
This submission was from Sean Chairokun you can see his blog link here http://chairokun.blogspot.com/2009/04/design-contest-unfinished.html.

Sean this was a great entry. We know all too well what it is like to be perfectionists about little details. Thank you for sharing this with us. We are glad you enjoyed the challenge and really think you did an amazing job with the challenge. We look forward to the next contest and can't wait to see what you will do then. Keep up the great work. We are thrilled to see our stock being used by creative people. If anyone else has one to share send it over, hopefully we can post it on the blog and get you some free PR.

Smallest contest, smallest turnout.

Okay, we knew this would be a small turnout but we certainly did expect a few more entries... not one person from Toronto even entered which was a big surprise as the FITC event is in Toronto. I even had to poke some people to enter so we'd have enough entries to put up for the Free delivery this week. In fairness to all of you, we did only give you a week to do this.

We would like to thank the people who did take the time to prepare these amazing visual treatments of last weeks Free vector files to create this weeks free files on our Stock-Archive.com promotional website. Our FITC pass winner is Philippe Wu from Ottawa, Ontario. This design was one of superb simplicity. We liked the 180 twist from our trippy collage that produced with all the elements for our marketing campaign. It was cool to see the various styles and ideas. It would have been great to see more. Next time we promise we'll give you more than a week to enter the competition.

Get this weeks free images. All the thumbs as seen are available in Vector format and FREE for download as part of www.Stock-Archive.com promo site. Enjoy and thank you.

See you at FITC!

Stock Archive Contest! > Share the love…

Probably the shortest contest in the world! Maybe the smallest contest in the world. All we need is “at least” one person to enter. More the better for sure! But, we only got one prize to pass out. We have one spare FITC pass left and thought we’d “Share the love…” and pass-the-pass to one of our members. But first you gotta “Share the love…” back to us.

The Prize = 1 pass to FITC in Toronto this April 25 -29, 2009.

[ More info about FITC > http://www.fitc.ca/event_detail.cfm?festival_id=79 ] (Note the fancy video we produced for FITC last year on the page)

Since the event is in two weeks and is in Toronto, Ontario, Canada that probably just narrowed down the contestants down to members who live near the city of Toronto as you’ll need to pay for your own transportation, accommodation, food and drinks and pretty much everything except the FITC Pass from Stock Archive Inc.

So what we want is one winner…. lots of entries. The winner gets a free pass to FITC 2009 in Toronto. Any submissions that do not win the pass will receive our thanks and gratitude for entering.

Terms and Conditions for entry:
1. Participants MUST either register or already be a registered member of Stock Archive Inc., Upon Registration you must agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy on the website www.Stock-Archive.com. Once registered you will have access to the elements for this contest and thousands of other Royalty-Free stock elements at no cost as part of our promotional giveaway that you can use for other projects.

You MUST ONLY use this weeks free images only. (See Page 72 of the Stock Archive Promotional website > www.Stock-Archive.com). Design and assemble a cool scene using the elements supplied. We’ve pasted a sample of the elements below (actual files are all Vector).



2. You CAN re-colour, duplicate or modify the supplied stock elements. You MAY do anything with the elements to create the final setting as part of your submission.

3. You CANNOT create or use any other custom built elements, fonts, or third party stock photos, illustrations or clipart other than what is on Page 72 of Stock Archive Promotional website.

4. You CAN use a generic background colour of your choice as made in Adobe Illustrator.

5. File submission must be an Adobe Illustrator and saved as an EPS. (Please compress as ZIP file if possible.)

Adobe Illustrator: File size 8.5 X 11 (Letter) size. Either Horizontal or Vertical.

Send all submission entries to info@stock-archive.com

Be sure to have your full name, Phone number and web link (If any) as we may post the name and web link with the selected finalist submissions on the Stock-Archive.com promo site.

6. You AGREE that all submissions become the property of Stock Archive Inc., in perpetuity. You release and transfer all copyright to the layout to Stock Archive Inc. regardless of it being the winning entry or not. Submitting your entry is your agreement to these Terms and Conditions. All or selected submissions become part of the Stock-Archive.com asset archive. At Stock Archive Inc’s own discretion we will upload all or selected submissions to the Stock-Archive.com promotional website and have it as part of our weekly “Free” content give away for other creative people to view, download and use. “Share the love…”

7.You AGREE that you will not be paid or compensated for your submission. (The prize is a giveaway. One finalist will selected by our judge and will receive the One FITC pass that we have the discretion to give as a prize.)

8. Stock Archive Inc. can modify, edit or amend the final artwork after the contest at its own discretion.

9. Credit for the layout will only be limited to the free promotional website and possibly in the Stock-Archive.com blog. Stock Archive Inc. will not be required or obligated to credit or list the name or organization of the layout(s) after the FITC event.

10. You CAN submit as many times under the same name provided the submissions vary in nature and style.

11. If your submission is considered the winner (as selected by our judge) you win the FITC pass. If you do not win there are no additional prizes other than our gratitude and thanks.

12. The winner must be the attendee to the conference. We will require your name, email and contact information. You will grant Stock Archive Inc. permission to forward your contact information FITC to reserve a pass under your name with Reference to Stock Archive Inc. You will pick up your pass at the event at the Registration booth.
If you are the winner, you are responsible for your own accommodation, transportation, food, meals, entertainment and actions at the event. Stock Archive Inc. will reserve your pass. The Winner alone is responsible for confirming his/her pass with FITC and will pick up the pass at registration during the event. You furthermore agree to release and hold harmless “Stock Archive Inc.” and “FlashinTO Inc. O/A FITC” from any liability before, during and after the event.

13. You agree and understand that this is not an FITC contest. This is a contest give away by Stock Archive Inc. as we have one pass left to hand out.

14. Judging will be based on what visual treatment. Nothing complex. If Masayo (our Judge) likes it best that is the one that wins. No Rocket science here.

15. You AGREE that Stock Archive Inc., reserves the right to not select a finalist or may terminate this contest for any reason at anytime with or without notice.

16. Deadline for submissions: Sunday April 19, 2008 at 11:59 PM EST.

17. The Winner will be announced on Monday April 20, 2009 on our blog.

18. The judge of this will be Masayo Shimizu of Stock Archive Inc. (The original illustrator of the artwork, as seen on page 72 of the www.Stock-Archive.com promo site).

19. By emailing any and all submissions to info@stock-archive.com you agree to these Terms and Conditions to this Contest.

We look forward to seeing what comes in. Good luck.

Kinda neat... My brain is officially augmented.

While some of you may have seen this. I can't stop looking at it. It is mind blowing what people are doing with Flash and their human brain and lots of spare time. While I could blab "on and on" about Augmented Reality, I think it is just best that you go see this for yourself. I've posted two links to watch... and some of you can actually do this and my hat is off to those of you who can. Our Flash skills are not quite savvy enough to do this so we'll just leave that to the pros and watch from the sidelines.

But seriously, go enjoy these two examples with Augmented Reality links.



Lee Brimelow http://www.gotoandlearn.com/play?id=105




Toyota Campaign http://http://www.toyota.co.uk/cgi-bin/toyota/bv/frame_start.jsp?id=iQ_reality

Free Images: K9 loyalty

This weeks free images are in the Loyalty K9 Class. We like dogs.. they like us.

Enjoy the free images this week. Also, if you can, please continue to tell people about us. Share the love if you will. We are a small like a terrier and cool as a boxer but, we still need people to love us! So help us out by putting us on your blog, a link from your website, facebook or just tell people about us and why you dig us. We would greatly appreciate it and we will be your loyal friend too.

We now have over 2000 free promotional images available to pre-registered users. Once we launch we will have over 60,000 images, illustrations, motion, audio and flash elements to choose from. Our loyal pre-registered users will get amazing promotional offers once the site launches. To pre-register, go to www.Stock-Archive.com

Woof!

Shameless Promo : Stock Archive Tradeshow display

While we are on the topic of Good Dog, Bad Dog, I thought we'd also show one of our tradeshow pop-up displays. We thought it would be good to see how these simple images can be used and re-used over and over again. These two images are free on page 27 and on Monday there will be some more of this fantastic K9 Mug for you.... and some other cute dogs in the site. So, if you like what you see go get em!

The print job was from a company called Industry Images. We are "Big Fans of..." Industry Images. They have super fast turnaround and great quality stuff and not to mention super cheap. Try them out on your next project. They have locations in Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Toronto. Go take a look. www.industryimages.com.

Good Dog, Bad Dog

We thought we'd play off the good and bad sides of stock photos. We all frown, curse under our breath... and some turn in their graves when they hear the word "Stock photo". But, it is a necessary evil as much as it is the St. and saviour. The way we look at it is this. Clients will be clients and they often tell you the budget is fixed (often very low) but expect the best possible project or they will get someone else to do it. (Corporate blackmail if you ask me). So, the best solution is to either take the photo yourself which is not a bad option, or go online and get some great images for a low cost. See, good, and a bad.

The "Good Dog, Bad Dog" advertising series was the last in our Magazine advertisement campaign in 2008 for www.Stock-Archive.com.

We are fine with Feiner

From the jumbo super empires like Fuel Industries to the independent creative superstars like David Feiner, we will profile these heroes from time to time. We just want to share the love and to pass on info and links of who and what's hot in the industry. Hopefully we can get some cool collaboration going or maybe just get people inspired enough to push their own creative limits. Hence David Feiner! This guy doesn't seem to have any limits. "Our hero" this month, David keeps impressing us with each new project he works on. With some great work from brands such as GM, Oh Henry, HBO and Toyota... and not to mention his own, David is setting the bar for independent freelancers proving that it is possible to stay single and be happy. Armed with an arsenal of creative juice, multiple Flash flavours and a vault load of passion it is no wonder why he chooses to stay as an independent. This guy works better with you than for you. Nice to see people stick to their guns for what they like to do and stay grounded at the same time. David is a super nice guy, with amazing ideas and he will for sure be one to watch as we expect amazing things from him in the next few years.

Do yourself a favour and go check out his site... better yet hire him for a project (or more). We are fine with feiner... you will be just fine too.

www.iamfeiner.com

April Fuel's Day: Get a job on the spot!

This is no April Fool's day joke, in fact it is called "April Fuel's Day" Open house Job fair. If you are not working at Fuel already you should be. If your in jail... break out and bring your portfolio and resume to this event. Heck If I wasn't running my own company I'd be in first at the door for a job with this amazing company. Fuel has the best talented designers, programmers and project managers from across Canada, the United States and other global countries. We are "Big fans" of Fuel Industries. A leader in Branded entertainment and mobile gaming. Seriously you should have stopped reading this blog at the second line and just clicked the link to get the info and go to the Job fair. Heck I just told my own staff to go apply for a job there. My fingers are crossed that they won't but why should I stand in the way of an amazing opportunity. It is nice to see that in these troubled times there is a company doing amazing stuff and hiring people when others are just letting them go. Good on ya Fuel!

So seriously... why are you still reading this blog... click the damn link already! www.fuelindustries.com