1930’s-40’s in Color

It’s possible that this should be an elsewhere entry, but as so many people have emailed, tweeted and otherwise asked about the placeholder images that I’m using in my New Internationalist redesign process, I thought I’d share the source.

1930s-40s in Color from The Library of Congress

From The Library of Congress on Flickr, The Commons

These vivid color photos from the Great Depression and World War II capture an era generally seen only in black-and-white. Photographers working for the United States Farm Security Administration (FSA) and later the Office of War Information (OWI) created the images between 1939 and 1944.

So why choose images from The Commons while designing?

• Many client supplied images are frankly not up to the quality/resolution that I need to work with
• The consistency of images across a single collection helps the templates hang together as a set
• They are readily available and if you choose from The Commons, license free for any media
• You can have fun with them

The licensing aspect of using images from The Commons is particularly important, at least for me. I'm aware that often my clients does not own the copyright of the images that they supply to me (whether they know that or not).

As I like to write about my work and and talk about it at conferences, using Commons images gives me a little peace of mind.

More from this set, others from The Library Of Congress on Flickr and of course, The Commons.