There is now a clothing line for all of us, everyone. It’s just a line of t-shirts, really, but the imagery is something everyone can relate to. This is because everyone is represented in almost suspiciously multi-cultural images of people in business attire baring their perfectly white teeth.
I’m talking about t-shirts with stock photos on them. Adobe is a doing a very limited run of shirts that actually aren’t for everyone, sadly. It’s a direct advertising campaign to promote their very own new stock service.
The idea is that they intend to completely overhaul the stock industry as a whole. Whether or not they actually manage that will be something to see, but they seem confident enough. They’re already heralding the end of the old ways with this run of shirts that commemorate, and maybe eulogize, the more ridiculous trends in stock imagery.
In a way, ironic t-shirts are the perfect send-off to the photos of random caucasian models doing such caucasian things as laughing at salad, laughing with their grandparents, laughing while being vaguely outside… It’s like a horrible alternate universe where the Joker won. It would explain the dead eyes that accompany every perfect smile, as five to ten people stand around a computer together.
If I had that many people looking over my shoulder at once, I wouldn’t be smiling.
Besides that, you have the classic “frustrated man in front of his computer, after he presumably just lost a competitive game of Overwatch” imagery, “men in business suits with boxing gloves because corporate knows about the fight club and wants to avoid a lawsuit”, and even that one with the woman with the headset. You know the one. It’s that picture where she’s just told someone to restart their modem for the fifteenth time today, and no, they can’t have compensatory credit.
Not gonna lie, a part of me will miss these pictures that subtly portray the dystopian elements of modern life, if only by making the supposed happiness of their models look really, really fake. I’d totally buy one if Adobe was selling them to everyone.
I’m curious, though, to see if the new world of Adobe stock will really be that much better, or if we’ll be putting these new images on ironic t-shirts in a decade or so.