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Unsplash Vs Pixabay
Unsplash Vs Pixabay
Aleksandar Popovski
May 7, 2020
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What is the image that the companies have chosen to portray to best represent
themselves?
he companies I have chosen to compare are two online stock photography
T platforms, Unsplash and Pixabay. Unsplash started in 2013 as a simple platform for
creators. The concept was born from the pain they had in finding great, usable
imagery.1 Today, Unsplash is a platform fueled by a community that has generously gifted
hundreds of thousands of their own photos.2 Prior to Unsplash, to find high quality photos without
the staged stock “look and feel,” one wold have to “dig deep” into the pocket in order to afford
photos by Getty images. Because of its model in which high quality photos became accessible for
Pixabay was launched in November 2010. With a total of 1.5 million free images, most of the
photos (1.2 million) and several hundred thousands of illustrations, vector graphics and clip arts.
Pixabay claims to be the largest collection of truly free quality images out there. All this content
has been contributed by over 100,000 different people from allover the world. Pixabay also
provides information on which camera was used counting over 1,200 different camera models.3
One of the notable differences between the two companies is that Pixabay in addition to photos
offers illustrations vector graphics, clip arts, videos, and music. Their home page photo stream
mixes images, illustrations, vector graphics, and clipart. It appears that they are trying to feature
Unsplash has been referred to as one of the world's leading stock photography websites by
Entrepreneur Magazine4, Forbes5, CNET6, Medium7 and The Next Web8. Although anyone can
upload their photos to Unsplash, they curate the best quality photos and feature them on their
1Medium. 2020. Introducing Unsplash For Brands. [online] Available at: <https://medium.com/unsplash/introducing-unsplash-for-
brands-3b60d1b4ad0c> [Accessed 1 May 2020].
2 Facebook.com. 2020. Unsplash. [online] Available at: <https://www.facebook.com/pg/unsplash/about/?ref=page_internal>
[Accessed 7 May 2020].
3 Pixabay. 2020. [online] Available at: <https://pixabay.com/blog/posts/pixabay-evolution-167/> [Accessed 7 May 2020].
4 Ark, Casey. "14 Amazingly Free Stock Photo Websites". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 19 September 2016.
5 Laurinavicius, Tomas. "33 Epic Sites With Breathtaking Free Stock Photos". Forbes. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
6 Martin, Taylor. "Use these 7 sites to keep your desktop wallpaper fresh". CNET. Retrieved 4 November 2016.
7 Senos, Dustin. "Stock photos that don't suck". Medium. Retrieved 10 December 2014.
8 Zee. "Unsplash is a site full of images you can freely use for your next startup's splash page". The Next Web. Retrieved 4 January
2017.
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homepage stream. This is very important as it provides a high quality image for the brand that has
given them the status of the most visited stock image site by creatives. Unsplash recently
introduced a new feature called “Unsplash for Brands” partnering with Google, Harley-Davidson,
Square, Boxed Water, Le Creuset, and Timberland in order to help shift mainstream perception.9
For Google Chromebooks, they’re making their flagship products more appealing to students; for
Harley Davidson, they want to expand their notoriety from the classic chopper to their new modern
electric motorcycle; for Square, they want to help people participate and thrive in the economy; for
Boxed Water Is Better, they want to bring awareness to plastic alternatives for water bottles.
Since the initial introduction of “Unsplash for Brands,” Unsplash has partnered with many other
brands such as Wix, a cloud-based web development drag-and-drop services, offering access to
the Unsplash photo library through the Wix web editor. They have partnered with over 1327
companies in order to further their mission to enable creativity by making quality visuals openly
accessible.10 In addition to partnering with companies, they launched Unsplash for Education —
connecting students and teachers everywhere to powerful, inspiring visuals. The partnership has
included institutions and organizations such as New York Public Library, Library of Congress,
Europeana, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Photo Library, British Library,
Birmingham Museums Trust, National Cancer Institute, Austrian National Library, Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, United States Geological Survey, McGill Library, Museums
Victoria, and Boston Public Library. Their slogan, “photos for everyone,” has been clearly
socially responsible brand connecting the communities while providing free access to quality
photos.11
9Medium. 2020. Introducing Unsplash For Brands. [online] Available at: <https://medium.com/unsplash/introducing-unsplash-for-
brands-3b60d1b4ad0c> [Accessed 1 May 2020].
10 Medium. 2020. Unsplash + Wix. [online] Available at: <https://medium.com/unsplash/unsplash-wix-37051cf4e517> [Accessed 7
May 2020].
11 Medium. 2020. Introducing Unsplash For Brands. [online] Available at: <https://medium.com/unsplash/introducing-unsplash-for-
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On a regular basis, Pixabay receives attention in international print and online magazines. 12,13,
14,15,16 Pixabay supports 26 languages appealing to a wider audience worldwide.
How well have the companies chosen to graphically represent those concepts?
Unsplash has maintained a minimalist style highlighting their product – photos. Their curation
process separates only high quality photos to be displayed on the photo stream. By teaming up
with well know brands, Unsplash achieves added value by synergy. Comparing to Pixabay they
On the other hand, Pixabay offers greater diversity of content including, illustrations, vector
graphics, clip art, as well as video and audio files. In my opinion, having a high quality photo next
to a simplistic clip art creates a “flee market style” effect devaluing the quality image.
Color Scheme
The color scheme Unsplash uses is black and white. This style conveys the image of minimalism,
luxury, sophistication, confidence, strength, and elegance.17 As a long time user of both platforms
it appears that Pixabay tries to mimic Unsplash when it comes to the feel and look of their website.
Their logo and website use the same color scheme as Unsplash with exception of green on the
upload button which seams to draw attention. Besides having an earlier start, perhaps this could
Logo
Recently, Unsplash had its logo redesigned. In their own words. “The original Unsplash logo was a
generic camera icon. It may seem like it was generic because we didn’t care. But actually, it was
generic because we did. We wanted Unsplash to be all about the beauty of images. A distraction-
12 "HVG - 65 ezer ingyenes, korlátozás nélkül letölthető fantasztikus kép". Hvg.hu. 5 February 2013. Retrieved 2014-05-30.
13 "Dassind die besten kostenlosen Fotodatenbanken". Die Welt. Welt.de. 2011-11-23. Retrieved 2014-05-30.
14 Von Rainer Schuldt, 14.06.2012, 19:00 Uhr (2012-06-20). "Tolle Bilder zum Nulltarif". Computerbild.de. Retrieved 2014-05-30.
Artitudes Design. 2020. Black & White In Marketing - Color Psychology - Artitudes Design. [online] Available at: <http://
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free zone where nothing got in the way of that. Not even a logo.” While their original logo worked
philosophically, it didn’t hold up practically. Even though the logo achieved the effect of “not getting
in the way,” the logo would cause confusion. One of the main issues with the generic-looking
camera logo was that it was easily confused with camera icons from other products (exe.
Instagram, Apple, Dropbox, Google, etc). It was hard to tell the difference between their logo and a
Google Search result for “camera icon.” Unsplash design team decided to partner with Mackey
Saturday to figure out an identity that worked better for Unsplash. Saturday said that “a core
function of a logo is to be distinctive…” so the new identity was born. Following the trend of
minimalism, the new logo portrayed a distinctive and versatile look wherever Unsplash could be.
While the old logo was obviously a camera, the new Unsplash logo can be seen however you one
wants to see it. It consists of two rows of three equally sized rectangles with the top middle one
separated above by the height of it leaving a white space. It can be interpreted as a “u” letter while
each rectangle represents a photo from their website with the separated one conveying the idea
that you have found the perfect match. Unsplash says that they interpret their new logo in many
different ways, claiming that however you see it, the new Unsplash logo is yours. The Unsplash
logotype suggests structure and simplicity, in a form that is a bold statement, for a powerful
identity. The logotype consists of custom drawn letter forms, meaning it is not a typeface, which
Pixabay logo has mainly stayed the same over the years. Like Unsplash, they used to have a
generic icon depicting a camera and photo but in their latest edition they got rid of it which is inline
with what Unsplash has done. The current log is definitively cleaner but unlike Unsplash, it lacks a
concept behind in order to bring it to the next level. Over all it’s a descent logo.
18Medium. 2020. A New Logo For Unsplash. [online] Available at: <https://medium.com/unsplash/a-new-logo-for-
unsplash-6f4b1e4e5241> [Accessed 7 May 2020].
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Online graphics
“Unsplash has been used in everything from Apple keynotes to the default theme shipped with
Wordpress. You’ve probably already seen a photo from Unsplash, you just didn’t know it.”19
Through their API, Unsplash has been integrated into over 810 applications featuring their images
On their “about” page, Pixabay provides online banners that can be embedded with html code.20
Even though it seams that they have updated their logo and got away from using the generic
camera and photo icon it is still available for download on the website. This can create confusion
as to which logo is the current one. They also offer two types of banners. One with a more flat/
vector look and feel and other with real life images. This also reflects that the brand needs a more
tight direction of its brand image in order to give a more consistent look across.
Fonts
Unsplash
The main font used by Unsplash is San Francisco Pro which is the system font used Apple in
macOS Catalina. It’s inspired by classic Helvetica and DIN fonts.21 Since Apple has a lot of
prestige around their brand, Unsplash has strategically picked it in order to create a similar feel
and look that surrounds the Apple brand. It provides a clean and readable experience.
Pixabay
For its logo, Pixabay uses Rezland font. Rezland is a decorative Sans type font. Personally I am
not a fan of it; as apart from the website it doesn’t provide a clear identity as to what it represent.
On their website, Pixabay uses Open Sans. Open Sans is popular in flat design-style web
design.22 Open Sans is used in some of Google's web pages as well as its print and web
21 En.wikipedia.org. 2020. San Francisco (Sans-Serif Typeface). [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
San_Francisco_(sans-serif_typeface)> [Accessed 7 May 2020].
22 Reid, Geri (April 29, 2013). "The flat design trend - where to from here?". Archived from the original on February 2,
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advertisements. It is used as Mozilla's default typeface for websites until 2019, and in the
Telegram Desktop app. It is the official font of the UK's Labour, Co-operative, and Liberal
Democrat parties. Chase Bank uses Open Sans as its primary font for print, branches, TV, Web,
and mobile apps.23 According to Google, it was developed with an “upright stress, open forms and
a neutral, yet friendly appearance” and is “optimized for legibility across print, web, and mobile
What is the tone of voice the companies have adopted in their communications?
One of the main emphasis Unsplash uses to convey their tone of voice is the sense of community
and inclusivity. They seam to focus on making a difference in the community by making high
quality photographs accessible to all. Their slogan “Photos for everyone” speaks to this fact.
If I can summarize Pixabay’s “tone of voice.” it would be something like this: “We give you access
What social channels have been chosen to be connected to the homepages and why
(please explain your opinion)?
Unsplash can be found on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Medium. With over 2.6 billion
monthly active users, Facebook is the biggest social network worldwide.25 Instagram has more
than one billion monthly active users which makes it one of the most popular social networks
worldwide.26 As of the first quarter of 2019, Twitter averaged 330 million monthly active user.27
Medium is an online publishing platform with over 60 million monthly active users.28 Unsplash
uses Medium as its blooming platform, thus taking the advantage of the possibility of a greater
23 En.wikipedia.org. 2020. Open Sans. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Sans> [Accessed 7 May
2020].
24 "Open Sans". Google Fonts. Retrieved 2018-07-07.
25Statista. 2020. Facebook Users Worldwide 2019 | Statista. [online] Available at: <https://www.statista.com/statistics/
264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/> [Accessed 7 May 2020].
26 Statista. 2020. Instagram: Active Users 2018 | Statista. [online] Available at: <https://www.statista.com/statistics/
253577/number-of-monthly-active-instagram-users/> [Accessed 7 May 2020].
27 Statista. 2020. Twitter: Number Of Active Users 2010-2019 | Statista. [online] Available at: <https://www.statista.com/
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exposure. Instagram is described as a platform targeting demographics under 35. A 63% of users
are between the ages of 18 to 34 which makes a great audience interested in photography.29 They
have 6,786 posts and 341k followers on Instagram. With over 4.7 billion users across each of the
social networks, Unsplash gets and wide exposure to its website and app. Since Unsplash is
seeking to influence as well as recruit content contributors the aforementioned social networks
Pixabay also has presence on the same social networks except for some reason they don’t
display a social media icon for Medium. On Instagram they have 851 posts and 53k followers
which is 6 times less than Unsplash. Being that they had about 3 year head start comparing to
Do the social media channels reflect what we can see from each company’s website?
Unsplash maintains consistent image across social media channels which reflects what we can see
on their website. Their logo is consistent across each channel. For instance, on their Instagram30
profile they are using white background behind their logo which reflect their philosophy of nothing
Pixabay’s Instagram profile logo, uses dark background with a white generic looking icon of a
camera and photo with the Pixabay title underneath. As discussed earlier, there is a lack of
consistency and confusion as to what is their current logo. Also, the icon is disproportionally bigger
29 Search Engine Journal. 2020. The 7 Biggest Social Media Sites In 2020. [online] Available at: <https://
www.searchenginejournal.com/social-media/biggest-social-media-sites/> [Accessed 7 May 2020].
30 Instagram.com. 2020. Unsplash (@Unsplash) • Instagram Photos And Videos. [online] Available at: <https://
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than the company name. On Facebook and Twitter, they use the generic camera and photo icon
on their profile.31
How do the two websites compare in Google for a sample key term?
When doing a Google search for “download free images” on Safari, Pixabay comes on the top
after the paid ads while doing the same search on Chrome Unsplash comes first above Pixabay.
Either way, they come up on top which means they have done a great job when it comes to SEO.
Which one do you think is the most effective digital project and why (please explain your
opinion)?
When it comes to diversity and quantity of content, Pixabay comes on top. As far as overall brand
image quality, Unsplash unequivocally portrays stronger image because it is consistent in the use
of its visuals. They have a minimalistic approach focusing on the content without peripheral
distractions. Pixabay relies on ads which can be distracting, while Unsplash uses an approach
What would you change in both websites and why (structural or content)?
The search feature is one of the most important elements on any stock image website. I would
implement a much more robust search on Unsplash allowing filtering by orientation, color, and
category. Pixabay allow you to search its content filtering by Popularity, Photos / Vector Graphics /
illustration / Video, Orientation, Category, Size, and Color. On Pixabay I would add “one click”
download on the main home page photo stream. Also, I would increase the “white space” around
the image thumbnails and change the layout to three column masonry style which allows for the
eye to better focus on each image rather than to struggle for clarity. I would separate the images
from illustrations on the Pixabay home page photo stream either dividing the photos from
inconsistencies. The website mock (p. 10) illustrates how the robust search feature would be
implemented in order to provide higher chance on finding the right content. I would retain
Unsplash homepage layout of the photo stream featuring three columns masonry style.
31 Facebook.com. 2020. Pixabay [online] Available at: <https://www.facebook.com/pixabay/> [Accessed 7 May 2020].
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