2021 Creative Trends Report | Letter from the CEO

It is important to recognize that we are living in a world that is extraordinarily different to where we were one year ago. As I write this, we are still grappling with a polarizing COVID-19 pandemic, our democratic processes have been challenged like never before, and we have witnessed protests in over 150 U.S. cities, and more than 60 countries in the fight for racial justice and equality.

Despite this, our team was inspired by the ways communities came together in solidarity: from small businesses, to front-line heroes, all displaying resilience, kindness and creativity in the time of quarantine. As we look to 2021, there is an underlying feeling of hope.

Here, we present our 10th annual Creative Trends report for 2021. Shutterstock is home to more than 350 million images, over 20 million videos, as well as music, vectors, and illustrations. In the past year, I made the most of our extensive library to create cool video conferencing backgrounds, festive birthday cards, and engaging business presentations. And I�m not alone�millions of Shutterstock users globally search for images, videos and music tracks every day, and it�s the keywords they use that allow us to uncover our top ten trend predictions, and what will define creative expression and innovation in the year ahead. These trends fall into five categories: Graphic, Photography, Footage, Music, and the Trend to Watch.

The future looks bold, bright, and breathtaking. We have seen the best of people at the very worst of times, and it is our hope that the themes of empathy, integrity and innovation that we have witnessed in 2020 continue to prevail in 2021. At Shutterstock, we believe that we are stronger together. We look forward to embarking on this next chapter with you.


Stan Pavlovsky
Chief Executive Officer
Shutterstock

https://content.shutterstock.com/creative-trends/

I don't know about you guys but I can't read this letter without feeling a strong irony in most of the sentences given the fact that in 2020 they didn't treat the contributors fairly at all to say the least... I'm usually a positive person and I try to find the brighter side of every situation, but feeling positive about this guy is kind of challenging.

I usually use the web upload and I got a nice surprise this week. When trying to upload some of my vector files it gave me an error notice and I was like, not again, some silly reason my upload can't get through, but to my surprise this time it wasn't some bug, it told me that I forgot some layers locked in my .eps file. I checked and it was right, then tested it a little and it discovers when the file size is too large or the eps version is not 10 or 8. These are all mistakes that are easy to make when preparing a vector file for SS and now it warns you before upload and not when it is already reviewed, saves a lot of time and annoyance. It is quite rare that something changes in the positive direction in Shutterstock's contributor panel, but when some new feature is really helpful it deserves to be mentioned! Thanks!