Digital Marketing Assessment: Website Comparison

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

free, the arrival of Unsplash changed everything.

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

the great diversity of content.

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

communicated by making photographs accessible to all. Unsplash attempts to portray itself as a

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-

brands-3b60d1b4ad0c> [Accessed 1 May 2020].

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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

seam to have a quality over quantity status.

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

be one reason why Pixabay has more content on its platform.

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.

15 "Yahoo Nachrichten - 6 Datenbanken mit Gratis-Bildern". De.nachrichten.yahoo.com. 2011-04-20. Retrieved 2014-05-30.

16 Page 12/2012, "Low-Budget-Bildquellen", p. 70-74, www.page-online.de

Artitudes Design. 2020. Black & White In Marketing - Color Psychology - Artitudes Design. [online] Available at: <http://
17

www.artitudesdesign.com/black-white-in-marketing-color-psychology/> [Accessed 7 May 2020].

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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

identifies the name Unsplash.18

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

throughout the web.

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

19 Facebook.com. 2020. Unsplash. [online] Available at: <https://www.facebook.com/pg/unsplash/about/?

ref=page_internal> [Accessed 7 May 2020].
20 2020. [online] Available at: <https://pixabay.com/service/about/> [Accessed 7 May 2020].

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,

2014. Retrieved January 24, 2014.

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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

interfaces.”24 It is a very versatile font.

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

to free photos and videos and would appreciate your donations.”

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/

statistics/282087/number-of-monthly-active-twitter-users/> [Accessed 7 May 2020].

28 Nelson, K., 2020. 6 Reasons You Should Publish Your Blog On Medium. [online] Sendible.com. Available at: <https://

www.sendible.com/insights/blog-publishing-on-medium> [Accessed 7 May 2020].

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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

open this possibility.

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

Unsplash they definitively need to gear up by posting more frequently.

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

“getting in the way” of the photos themselves maintaining a minimalistic style.

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://

www.instagram.com/unsplash/> [Accessed 7 May 2020].

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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

that gives value to the user without disruption of the experience.

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

illustrations by category in order to provide a better visual experience and minimize

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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