How do they handle image requests?

We asked a few companies how they handle image requests from press outlets. They had some great tips on how to best provide hi-res imagery when requested!

Before thinking about fulfilling image reuqests, you must make sure there are shots that put your product in the best light. Our friends at DODOcase run through a comprehensive shot list, which they’ve developed internally, for each product they offer.

Keeping up with the image requirements for any design oriented business has always been a challenge. At DODOcase, over time, we’ve developed a complete ‘shot list’ for everything we’ll need for e-commerce, social media and press. As it turns out, it is quite a list!

We like to shoot both product and lifestyle shots for each item. Once the assets have been created, we typically use Dropbox to fulfill requests. Our press folder will have both lifestyle and product images in hi-res and low-res versions. Our goal is to provide a variety of images to allow the press to highlight our products in the best light for their particular piece.

— Craig Dalton, President & Co-Founder, DODOcase

The folks at Sideshow Press focus on the style and mood of their press images. Once they’ve capture the perfect shots, they simply provide them to press in the media outlet’s desired format.

We take time before we launch our collections to make sure we have good product and lifestyle shots that capture the mood of the collection and the products themselves. When we receive an image request, we simply pull from our database of product shots, providing hi-res or web-ready images (whatever they require).

— Courtney G. Rowson, Partner, Sideshow Press

When they receive requests, Jen and Omar of These are Things instruct writers and editors to browse their website to find desired images.

Whenever we shoot photos, we save out three different versions. One is the web-ready version that we use for our website and for bloggers who’d like to use our images on their own site. Another is a super hi-res TIFF or PSD that we can send to magazines or other print publications. Finally, we keep the RAW photo file in case we need to go back and do any exposure or color tweaks.

If a member of the press would like to use any of our photos, we ask them to look through our shop and pick out which products and images they’d like and we give them the resolution they need. We have a few photos of ourselves if their press feature wants to talk about us along with the product.

We also have a generic press photo kit in a ZIP file that includes a collection of our work along with a few photos of ourselves located on a password protected section of the site.

— Jen Adrion + Omar Noory, Founders, These are Things

When image requests come in for I Heart Guts, they allow press to choose from a full press kit or just certain images. To make the editor’s lives easier, they make sure all iamges are named in a consistent and logical manner.

We take photos of all our products, and we have hi-res ones on hand to send out for media requests. We have a ZIP file you can download on our media page, but usually photo editors just ask for exactly what they want, they don’t want to dig through a giant folder of stuff. It’s also important to clearly label the photo – who made it and what it is. A file named IMG_666.jpg is going to get lost in that downloads folder. An image named TESTICLE.IHEARTGUTS.jpg will float to the top and be easy for that harried editor to find.

— Wendy Bryan, Founder, I Heart Guts

The guys behind Studioneat have a simple and effective system for handling press requests. It’s both easy to update and convenient for editors.

We have a Press link in our main navigation and this page has a link at the top to our Flickr page we use exclusively for press images.

Originally we were hosting a ZIP file with all our press images, but that was a pain to update. Using Flickr is a much better solution, and allows the person to select a single image to download.

— Dan Provost, Co-Founder, Studio Neat

Overall, it appears that there are many system in place to fulfill press image requests. Some use Flickr, some use Dropbox, and some just email the requested files. The one lesson they all share is that each of them aims to make it as easy as possible for their media contact. They make sure there’s a system that gets the editors the files that they need and that the company is happy to use.

Thanks to everyone for sharing! Stay tuned for more glances into how great companies have solved their problems!