Are you using free images for your marketing, advertising or blog?

Source: iCLIPART.com

Just because you can find images/illustrations online without any notice of copyright protection, this does not guarantee it is meant to be given into the public domain. The image just might have been copied and republished (legally or illegally) by a different person.

Unfortunately, for some, they are finding out how costly it can be to use copyrighted works, images or illustrations without paying for the right to do so.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/school-lesson-plans-1.5393384

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/york-university-ordered-to-pay-up-after-losing-copyright-battle-1.4202058

Whether you are an educational facility, your site isn’t commercial and you make no money from your blog or website, you link back to the photo source, cite the photographer’s name, or you immediately take down the picture after receiving a take down notice, you will be held responsible.

Copyright lawsuits are increasing. Cover yourself with an image provider you can trust:

iCLIPART.com:
1-Year Plus (includes vector illustrations) $99.95/year/100 images per day/3000 per month
iPHOTOS.com:
$99.00/month/35 images per day/1050 images per month or save even more with a 1-Year $399.95 subscription.


Shutterstock:
$169/month/350 images per month

AdobeStock:
$199.99/month/750 images per month

GettyImages:
Starting at $175 per download (small images/low resolution video)


As a universal rule, most images are protected by copyright laws around the world and you need permission to use an image as-is or to change it. Even if you are getting images from a reputable provider, make sure your usage is allowed.

Questions or comments contact support@vitalimagery.com

The Best of 2019 - iPHOTOS.com

Here are some of our most popular images of 2019. It's not hard to see why they were so popular:

Sunflowers in a field:

Source: iPHOTOS.com

Back to school concept including books and stationery supplies with chalkboard:

Source: iPHOTOS.com

 Long exposure night landscape:

Source: iPHOTOS.com

Border of fruits and fall leaves on the dark wooden background:

Source: iPHOTOS.com

Tropical beach at sunset:

Source: iPHOTOS.com

iPHOTOS.com is your one stop for: photos, photo objects, vector illustrations, footage, fonts and more for creative, social media managers and business professionals.

Visit iPHOTOS.com: https://www.iphotos.com

Images From a Christmas Past - Dover Publications

These wonderful illustrations bursting with nostalgic appeal will help recapture the holiday spirit for Christmas.  iCLIPART.com has thousands of rare and unique images from Dover Publications and we wanted to share with you some of the wonderfully classic, Christmas inspired images to help with your crafts, designs and design ideas.

Gathered together by Dover Publications book titles, here are some of our favorites for this special time of the year:

Title: Vintage Christmas Cards
Enhance holiday cards and other seasonal projects.

            

Title: Merry Christmas 
Nearly 300 festive clipart images to help with your seasonal projects.

          

 

Title: Christmas Scapes
Intricate designs of reindeer, candy canes,  snowmen, nutcrackers, ornaments,  poinsettias, and more

          

Title: Snowflake Vector Designs 

             

View all the Dover Publications Titles here: Dover Publications at iCLIPART.com

Inspiration for Content Marketing

Inspiration for your content and designs doesn’t always come easily. Perhaps weather or life challenges are making it difficult for you to feel inspired.

Here are 5 ways to help get your creative juices flowing:

1. Random Keywords: When looking for great images to work with, enter a random keyword and search for that inspiration: I tried “yellow” and was very pleased with the variety of results. Try for yourself at iPHOTOS.com

Source: iPHOTOS.com

2. Follow like minded groups or people on your social media platforms: Check out the competition or like minded groups and people to see what they are posting about, you might be surprised and better yet, inspired! The best social media platforms for businesses are: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Youtube 

Source: iPHOTOS.com

3. Let the “new this month” or "new this year" features help inspire you: On iPHOTOS.com you can search all the new photos or illustrations to help you get inspired. Check out the latest photography additions to the site here: iPHOTOS.com New This Month and New This Year

4. PANTONE Color of the Year 2020: The Classic Blue: look for inspiration from the elegant and enduring blue hue. This classic blue gives us the the feeling of relaxation and comfort: Color of the Year

5. Holidays and Special Dates: Check out our December Marketing Blog about many of the special dates and holidays you can use to help create marketing content.

Source: iPHOTOS.com

Leave a message and tell us what inspires you with your content marketing

Teaching about Plagiarism but not Copyright?

Source: iCLIPART.com

Teachers and educators will hold students to a high standard when it comes to plagiarism, but unfortunately they haven’t been as strict about copyright/trademark laws. Students have been encouraged to find photographs and artwork online to include in their presentations and projects.

Plagiarism: is the act of taking someone else’s work and presenting it as your own without giving credit/citation to the original creator.

Copyright: is the exclusive right given to the creator of a creative work.  The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form

If you use someone else’s creative work, like music, photographs, or illustrations, it can be illegal. You can possibly be breaking copyright and/or trademark laws.

Here are two recent articles about legal action taken on schools
for breaking copyright laws:

Houston school sued for copyright infringement

German school sued photo copyright 

Click to visit iCLIPART for Schools

Protect yourself, your students and your school from copyright infringement but using high quality, royalty-free and copyright safe images.

iCLIPART for Schools contains over 8 million royalty-free clipart images, photos, web graphics, animations, fonts and sounds. Subscribe today and receive access to this amazing collection!

Every iCLIPART for Schools subscription includes professional-grade imagery in formats compatible with virtually all Macintosh and Windows compatible software. Just choose the format you need and click download. It's that easy!

Use iCLIPART for Schools images in Web sites, newsletters, brochures, advertisements, announcements, signs -- virtually any graphic design project you can think of! iCLIPART for Schools content is used by educators, teachers and students from all over the world in their worksheets, flyers, presentations, websites, projects and more!

Clipart and photo categories contain great content in popular categories such as holidays, religion, business, sports, animals, food, people and more. We are proud to be able to also offer the entire Dover Publications collection in an easy to search book title listing. With 1,000s of new images added weekly, you'll always be able to find the right image when you need it.


Testimonials:

I can't begin to tell you how great your site is for teachers. I am a first-grade teacher in a school where about 90 percent of our students are English Language Learners. Having your website, has allowed me to create picture cards to help my students understand the vocabulary and grammar that I am trying to teach them everyday. The pictures are fun and colorful and the kids use them as prompts to create sentences or stories. Thanks for making my job easier! J. Young

I have been a subscriber since July 2008 and I have to say that iCLIPART for Schools is simply THE best in quality as well as quantity of graphics sites I have ever come across. The selection is so massive I don't believe I could ever view all of the art that you make available and you keep adding new stuff all the time. Great job and keep up the great work.
B. Littlejohn

Images for Your Home Based Business and Craft Projects

With the advances in technology and the internet, it has become increasingly easier to sell products, such as, t-shirts, mugs and other easily made products from your home. Some people think that you can just search for images on Google, download them and add it to your products to start making money or part of your corporate branding.  In most cases this is ILLEGAL! You would most likely be breaking copyright and/or trademark laws. Let's face it, artists deserve to be paid for their creations and photography. You wouldn't want to give away your products for free and they shouldn't have to either.

Source: iCLIPART.com

In order to be sure you are not breaking any copyright/trademark laws:

1. Source a reputable image provider that works with artists and pays them a royalty for you. Check out these sites for affordable licensing and subscription/individual image pricing options:

- iCLIPART.com
- iPHOTOS.com
- AnimationFactory.com
- Clipart.com

2. Contact image providers and be very clear in what your usage will be, how your products will be made and how it will be distributed. (in some cases they will have the information on subscriptions needed, for your use, right on their websites)

3. Make sure you are choosing the correct licensing subscription for your use and how long you will need to be covered for. You can often choose from individual image purchases to one or two year subscriptions.


Once you have the correct licensing needed for your projects, you can start creating fabulous gifts, greeting cards and more.

Source: iCLIPART.com

Check out these popular vector image categories, available in many different vector file formats (SVG, EPS, WMF, PDF and AI) on iCLIPART.com. These can be used in Cricut machines to cut paper, vinyl, fabric, craft foam, sticker paper, or for use with iron-on paper, sticker paper and more.

Weddings
Christmas Quotes
Animals
Unicorns
Alphabet 

For questions contact support@vitalimagery.com

5 Tips For Your Black Friday Marketing

Source: iCLIPART.com

Black Friday is one of the seasons largest shopping days. It's an informal name for the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, which is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. Many stores offer highly promoted sales on Black Friday and open very early or may even start their sales on Thanksgiving Day.

There isn't as big of a difference between Black Friday and Cyber Monday as there once was. Black Friday is as much an online event as it is a brick-and-mortar one. Although, plenty of stores still run "door-crasher" sales that require shoppers to actually show up, the on-line world has fully embraced Black Friday. The Black Friday weekend is almost a four day affair, if not more. We start with Gray Thursday, which is U.S. Thanksgiving Day, then there’s Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, which often extends the whole week.

1.Take advantage of these popular #hashtags in your social media postings to attract customers looking for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals:

#BlackFriday #BlackFriday2019 #sale #BlackFridaySale #Christmas #BlackFridaySales #Thanksgiving #promo #ig #BlackFridayDeals #BlackFridayShopping #shopping #BlackFridayWeek #BlackFridayWeekend #BlackFridayMadness #BlackFridaySpecial #CyberMonday #CyberMonday2019 #CyberMondaySales #CyberMondaySale  #CyberMondaySpecial #CyberMondayWeek #CyberMondayDeals #sales

Source: iCLIPART.com

2. Add new graphics and banners to all your social media pages and websites. Use high quality illustrations and photographs for social media posts and email campaigns. iCLIPART.com has thousands of images that can help with your website banners, emails and social media content: Black Friday Images
 
3. It's a great time to let customers know about any new products or offers your business has. Whether you add new products a few days before Black Friday or add them exclusively for Black Friday, customers will love to see what's new.

4. Scheduling your social media posts ahead of time will make your life easier. Write out the copy with the relevant #hashtags and images in advance, then use social media scheduling or services like Buffer or Hootsuite.

5. Use smart SEO (Search Engine Optimization). If each year you create a new Black Friday landing page on your website. Stop now! Your SEO will start on a clean slate and most likely won't rank high in searches. Keep these yearly landing pages up all year long but be sure to make the content you keep on these pages relevant throughout the year. You could add a sign up function so that your potential customers can be notified of any upcoming sales.

Happy Selling!

Marketing Content Ideas for December

“December's wintry breath is already clouding the pond, frosting the pane, obscuring summer's memory” - John Geddes 

Decorate your social media pages: You decorate your tree, your house, and even your pets! You should also decorate your social media profiles for the season with festive graphics.

Let your business pages get personal: Do you have a favorite holiday memory that inspired you to open your business? What about a family recipe or tradition? You can have a day where the staff dress up (Santa hat’s or ugly Christmas sweaters) and share the images on your social media pages.

Add a personal touch: Create personalized cards or e-cards and send them out to customers, important business connections and local businesses.

Click on the Special Dates and events for images that can 
be used for marketing and social media content:

December 2: Cyber Monday
December 2: Special Education Day
December 4: Santa's List Day
December 4: Cookie Day
December 5: Ninja Day
December 6: Give a Secret Gift Day
December 7: Letter Writing Day
December 8: Brownie Day
December 10: Human Rights Day
December 12: Poinsettia Day
December 19: Build a Snowman Day
December 20: Games Day
December 20: Ugly Christmas Sweater Day
December 21: (approximate) Winter Solstice
December 24: Christmas Eve
December 25: Christmas Day
December 26: Boxing Day
December 27: Make Cut-Out Snowflakes Day
December 30: Take a Walk Day.
December 30: Bacon Day
December 31: New Year's Eve

For comments or questions contact support@vitalimagery.com

Publishing a Book - Photographs and Illustrations

Have you ever thought about publishing a book? You've got your story/idea but now you need images to complete your book and something really eye catching for your cover photo. Whether you want to design the cover yourself or hire someone (who will probably use stock images anyhow) to design it for you. Why not save time and money by finding a great image from the team of talented creators that have probably already designed the perfect image at iCLIPART.com

iCLIPART.com has millions of great royalty-free, copy-write safe images you can use to complete your projects. Click the links below to find your perfect images:

Comic Book Images

Source: iCLIPART.com

Children's Book Images

Source: iCLIPART.com

Cook Book Illustrations/Photos

Source: iCLIPART.com

Business Themed Images

Source: iCLIPART.com

Play around with different keywords to find images more specific to your projects. You can also contact support@vitalimagery.com to assist with your needs.

Know your rights when it comes to using stock images. Make sure you have the correct license for what you are using the images for. When in doubt contact the image provider and get specific on how the image will be used, how many cumulative copies of images you will need and if the print will be in advance of sales or print-on-demand.

Marketing Content Ideas for November

Source: iCLIPART.com

It's important to keep a Marketing Calendar/Social Media Content Calendar. These are great tools for showing what marketing events, media campaigns and merchandising efforts are planned and for when.

November is an extremely busy time of year, as we prepare for the biggest holiday season and keeping a calendar to stay organized will be helpful to you and your team.

Finding and creating content is not always easy, so we’ve put together a list of monthly observances for November and hopefully a few of these will get your creative juices flowing.

Click on each November observance for images that will help with your campaigns:

Aviation History Month

Epilepsy Awareness Month

Movember

Source: iCLIPART.com

Military Family Appreciation Month

National Adoption Month

National Fun with Fondue Month

National Georgia Pecan Month

National Native American Heritage Month

National Family Literacy Month

National Novel Writing Month

National Peanut Butter Lovers Month

World Vegan Month


Special Dates in November:

Veterans Day / Remembrance Day -  November 11

Thanksgiving (USA) - November 28

Black Friday  - November 29

Source: iCLIPART.com

Remembrance Day - Canada

Source: iCLIPART.com

On Remembrance Day we come together to honour the Canadian men and women who fought and died for peace and freedom.

The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, we will remember.

Remembrance Day was first observed in 1919 throughout the British Commonwealth. It was originally called “Armistice Day” to commemorate armistice agreement that ended the First World War on Monday, November 11, 1918, at 11 AM

Remembrance Day boils down to memory, respect, appreciation, and gratitude.

In elementary school students participate in Legion Poster and Poem contests. It is a wonderful, interactive way to teach children what Remembrance Day really means. Even 50 years after elementary school, you would be hard-pressed to find a Canadian born adult that doesn’t recognize John McCrae’s In Flanders Fields.

In Canada the only two provinces that do not observe Remembrance Day as a statutory holiday are Ontario and Quebec. Personally, I think this is how all of . As a student, if I had been able to stay home and sleep in on Remembrance Day, I wouldn't know as much as I do about the history and the importance of the day.

 Find images related to Remembrance Day and Poppies, as well as millions of other royalty-free and copyright-safe images at iCLIPART.com

Source: iCLIPART.com

Online Invitations

For those interested in making a difference to help save trees, time, and money, you can customize an invitation design and email it to your guests.

Create elegant online invitations to send directly to all of your friends and family.

Whether your planning for your wedding day, a birthday event or just a casual get-together, sending out your invitations has never been easier.

No more worries about your hand writing, when you create your invitation online.

There are many company's offering this service but we decided to have a closer look at what Paperless Post has to offer with their "upload your own" design feature: https://www.paperlesspost.com/upload-your-own










I'm choosing to work with a "save the date" invitation vector image from iCLIPART.com. iCLIPART.com has thousands of images to work with. To keep it simple you can choose a blank image or remove the sample text that some images provide. Here is my edited version of image #1829660.

For more "save the date" invitations: click here

Source: iCLIPART.com

The steps are simple for creating your paperless invitation:

1. Choose page
2. Upload your design or image
3. Edit the image text, photo, motif or backdrop
4. Choose your envelope and liner colors/patterns
5. Choose your stamp and postmark
6. Choose your reply card options
7. Enter further details and your recipients.


I really loved the option to request your guests mailing addresses, so that you can send out formal invitation by mail if you chose to.

Give them a try and tell us what you think:

https://www.paperlesspost.com/upload-your-own

Free Stock Images - NOT worth it

Source: iCLIPART.com

Free stock images are just not worth the risk. You run the risk of being blamed for copyright infringement and having to pay thousands of dollars to the image creator.

But, the image came with a license, you say. Great! but those licenses are really only valid if the issuer is the copyrighted owner or has the legal permission from the owner to distribute the image.
Are you willing to bet that the "free image providers" are using enough resources to verify every image that has been allowed to be uploaded by virtually anyone?

Vital Imagery

Vital Imagery is a provider of royalty-free, copyright safe, digital image content with one of the world's largest wholly owned collections, and over 25 million images available 24/7. Our content includes clipart, photos, fonts, sounds and animations used by corporate, agency and freelance graphic design professionals, the educational sector, publishing, media and entertainment industries.

Offering a wide range of choices to meet all creative needs from Animation Factory, Clipart.com,  iCLIPART.com and iPHOTOS.com, we make it easy for customers to get to work with straightforward purchase plans for single-images or all-access subscriptions for a chosen time frame.

We offer special educational pricing for teachers and students with our school sites that offer child-friendly, royalty-free and copyright safe images. iCLIPART for Schools and Clipart.com School Edition

Vital Imagery offers subscriptions and single image purchases to suit every budget. If you are unsure which subscription or site would be best suit your needs, contact us and let us know what you will be using the images for and how many you might need: support@vitalimagery.com

Halloween Images and Ideas

Look no further! All the images you need for Halloween. Animations, cut-ready vector images and photographs to help complete your marketing, decorating, craft projects, gift ideas and more.

Check out these amazing Halloween Alphabet Vectors: Click here to see more

Source: iCLIPART.com

Halloween Banners, Posters, Place Cards, and more: Click here to see more

Source: iCLIPART.com

Make the perfect gift with cut-ready images, vectors and customizable images: Click here to see more

Source: iCLIPART.com

Keep the kids busy with Halloween Coloring Images: Click here to see more

 If the image has "color this image online" below it, you can click on that to open our image coloring tool and the kids can color the image on their device and you won't have to worry about their crayons or markers or you can print and color. (subscribers only)

Use the online coloring tool: Click here to try it

Check out these links for more Halloween ideas: Animation, Photography, and Clipart

Time Management

Source: iCLIPART.com

 
As humans we are pre-wired to focus on things that need our immediate attention, like alerts on our phones and we ignore more important things or put them off. We need to train ourselves to focus on what is important and suppress urgency.


Here is a list of things that will help you master your time:

1. Have you ever heard of the term, less is more?
Limit your tasks for the day to 1-3 important things and focus on them. Your brain won't like this and other's probably won't either but you will have more time to complete the important things. What is the single most important (not urgent) thing you could do today? Do that.

2. Schedule your priorities.
Treat your priorities like an important flight that you have to catch. Nothing will stop you from getting there on time. We tend to put things off and think we will eventually get to it.

3. Turn off notifications.

Source: iCLIPART.com

Stop allowing these time consuming distractions. We get alerts for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and emails all day long and they are a huge distraction. Turn them off until your break or lunch so that you can focus on your important things.

4. Say No.
For most of us, it is a natural reaction to say yes when someone asks us to do something but in order to focus on the important things we have to learn to say no sometimes and stay focussed. Politely explain your priorities and the consequences of taking on additional work.

5. Get to know your body's energy cycle.
Are you a morning person? or slow to get started? Plan your daily tasks to work with your body's energy cycle and plan to get the most of your work done during your peak time.

Time management isn't just about work, we have to remember that we need a good work-life balance to stay healthy and happy. We need time to relax and socialize.

Questions? Contact support@vitalimagery.com

Oktoberfest Sayings, Captions and Images

Source: iCLIPART.com

Yes, autumn brings many splendid things like apple picking, Halloween, and
pumpkin spice everything, but the best of all it brings us Oktoberfest.

Although Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany that happens annually from mid-September to the beginning of October has come to an end. Things are ramping up for the start of Canada's Greatest Bavarian Festival in Kitchener-Waterloo.

Founded in 1969, it's the largest Oktoberfest celebration outside of Munich, Germany.

Oktoberfest Kitchener-Waterloo Canada

Here are some sayings and captions to help get you through Oktoberfest.

Let's start with some German:

• Willkommen zum Oktoberfest which is German for Welcome to Oktoberfest
• Prost!  which is German for Cheers!
• Bitte  which is German for Please; You’re welcome
• Danke  which is German for Thank you
• Sprechen Sie Englisch? which is German for Do you speak English?
• Noch ein Bier, bitte! which is German for Another beer, please!
• Oans, zwoa, drei, g’suffa!  which is German for One, two, three… drink!
• Wie heißt du? Ich heiße…  which is German for What’s your name? My name is…
• Woher kommst du?  which is German for Where are you from?

These captions and sayings will help you with your social media content:

• Beer is the answer, but I can't remember the question.
• Sip happens.
• Drunk me loves creating awkward situations for sober me.
• This beer tastes like I'm not going to work tomorrow.
• Friends bring happiness into your life. Best friends bring beer.
• 24 hours in a day. 24 beers in a case. Coincidence… maybe.
• Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer.
• Beer is the only reason I wake up every afternoon.
• You can't buy happiness, but you can buy beer… and that's kind of the same thing.
• I just rescued some beer. It was trapped in a bottle.
• You drink too much, swear too much, and your morals are questionable. You're everything I've ever wanted in a friend.

Great Oktoberfest photo's and vector images, to use in your social media posts and marketing materials, can be found at iCLIPART.com

Source: iCLIPART.com

 

Zicke zacke zicke zacke hoi hoi hoi  

Awesome Ideas for Pet Portraits

Source: iCLIPART.com

Are you ready to capture some fun and creative photos of your dog? 
Do you want to do this yourself, rather than hiring a pro?
If so, there are several ways you can create amazing shots that are truly unique. 
Keep reading for some of the best ideas out there.

Add Clipart to the Photo

While capturing a photo of your pet isn’t difficult, if they are just sitting there, it can 
be a bit dull and boring. Don’t worry. There’s a quick and easy way to liven any 
picture up. One of the best ways to do this is with clipart. Clipart is a collection of images 
or pictures that can be used on a document – like the picture of your pet. These 
images are usually made out of raster or vector graphics. You can find clipart 
galleries with hundreds or even thousands of images, and many are free to use. 
This is going to let you quickly add a bit of fun and whimsy to any pet picture you have.

Create a Pet Portrait

Don’t worry, there’s no need to grab paint and canvas to create the perfect pet portrait. 
You can check out Instapainting, where you can get a picture of your pet (or something 
else) turned into an amazing and unique portrait. Keep in mind, though, both of the 
portrait ideas above mean that you first have to capture the perfect picture. Some 
ideas to get that one-of-a-kind shot are found here.

The “Run to Me” Shot

Crazy eyes, long flapping tongues, and flying ears are hilarious and a great way 
to capture the spirit and personality of your dog. To get this shot, you need to get 
outdoors and ensure there is plenty of natural light. Set your camera to use a fast 
shutter speed, or if possible, a sports mode. Get on ground level so that you are eye 
level with your pup. Have your dog run right at you to capture the shot. It may be a 
good idea to have someone help you with this, as they can release the dog at the 
right time or even throw a ball to get the pup pointed in the right direction.

Play with Your Pup

Most dogs are always ready to play. Why not capture these fun moments with your 
camera? Again, if you want a great action shot, be sure there is plenty of light and use 
the same fast shutter speed you did above. You can choose to shoot from a distance 
and capture what they are doing or get up close with a wide-angle while engaging with 
the dog. Most dogs don’t require too much encouragement to play and being able to 
capture the expressions of pure joy is going to create an amazing picture. While you 
may have to take a lot of pictures to capture that perfect shot, it will be worth it when 
you walk away with the picture you were trying to get, and a happy pup.

Source: iCLIPART.com

The Puppy Dog Eyes Shot

For this picture, try to find a plain background, such as wood decking, tiles, pebbles, 
or grass. Face your dog toward the light so their face is lit evenly. Make sure you 
have your dog’s attention and try to keep it by showing treats or their favourite toy 
near your camera. Look down the barrel at your dog and try to focus on the eyes, 
rather than the nose, for the desired look.

Capturing Your Pup with the Perfect Picture

The tips here are going to help you get that amazing shot you were looking for. 
Be sure to take advantage of clipart, portrait services, and some of the “action” 
shots found here to get amazing photos you will be proud to show off.