A picture is worth a thousand … Rands? Many of our clients wonder how we charge for photography and why image prices vary so much. When sourcing photography for our clients’ campaigns and projects we typically use three types of photography: Rights Managed (RM), Royalty Free (RF) or a commissioned photography. How we choose between the three depends on the clients’ needs, production schedule and budget.

Power of 9 Commissioned photography for OROAFRICA. Photographer: Malcolm Dare

This blog post explains the difference between the three types of photography as well as the pros and cons of each. I also refer to a recent project where we used a client’s library of commissioned photography and a royalty free image to create a stylish design solution.

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One of our clients, Hosaf asked us to design a striking exhibition stand for the 2009 PROPAK Africa Show at MNT Expo Centre, Nasrec, Johannesburg from 20 – 23 October.

The design brief specified the need to communicate that a large percentage of their fibre products are made from recycled plastics, known as ‘PET’.

The image above is a CAD drawing of the exhibition stand. Below is a photograph of  the final product.

I used images of discarded plastic bottles and new PET manufactured plastic bottles to translate the theme of Hosaf’s recycling process into a 3-D  2.5m high and 6m by 5m exhibition space.

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Tweeting is not just for birds. Twitter, the micro-blogging site, allows anyone to ‘tweet’ and share their opinions online in posts with a limit of 140 characters, much like a text message.

Who cares you ask? Brands care. A recent study found that 39% of people on Twitter have discussed a brand or product and 44% are receptive to promotions and special offers (if you’re interested, read more here).

South African brands have taken notice and it’s no wonder since Twitter is the 8th most visited site in South Africa and South Africa is the the 10th largest user of Twitter. Now you can see the big attraction!

If you’ve been convinced and want to start tweeting, here are a few things you should know…

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Wondering what’s all the fuss about social media? This blog post will get you up to speed on the size of social networks Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in South Africa.

According to Internet World Stats, South Africa’s internet user growth has grown 91.3% from 2000 to 2009. Universal McCann’s Wave 4 annual social media tracker reports that 1.4 million South Africans have a social network profile and 25% of South Africa’s active internet users are uploading videos to a video sharing site. Social media has surpassed the popularity of online porn and many say that it’s about to squash TV as an entertainment provider.

In other words, social media isn’t big… it’s HUGE.

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