I've only been in the business of selling stock vectors since 2007, and before that my knowledge of the business is limited to what I know from a buyer's perspective in the late 1990s and early 2000s where if I needed a stock vector graphic I was going to one of the massive clipart catalog discs.

I've been searching through old forums posts and browsing some of the oldest vector content on SS and istock and as best I can tell, istock brought vectors to the microstock game in early 2002. Shutterstock launched their vector system in March 2005.

I know lots of folks have been around the business far longer than I have, so I'm wondering if anyone here can fill in any of the missing bits of stock vector history I'm missing.

Before istock, was there anything else going on online for vector image sales/licensing? I know online photo services that allowed instant downloads were around in the mid/late 1990s. Was there anything around for single-image vector sales or was it all just the big clipart collections and discs?

I guess this really isn't just vectors...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_illustration

Yeah, that's more of the fine-art type of illustration, painted illustration, drawings, traditional media. I know that stuff has been around as stock for far longer than microstock.

I'm more wondering about when vectors became stock assets on their own, outside of the clipart catalogs and 10k image discs.