Finding & Citing Media

All of our products use images, audio, or videos. When you are creating any content for the company, you need to know how to choose appropriate images, audio, and videos, as well as how to properly cite your media selections to avoid legal complications.

Determining Which Media to Use

Adding media to your content is a great way to beautify your content and engage the customer. Before you add any media to a product, you must ensure that it is relevant and high-quality. This will help us maintain the professionalism of our brand. 

Example: The image below is very pixelated. Never use low-quality images in our content. 

Finding and Citing Media from the Internet

As often as possible, our media department shoots photo and videos to add to the company's media library. In cases where the company doesn't have the media you need, however, you can occasionally use photos, videos, and audio clips from the internet.

You should prioritize using the company's images and videos whenever possible. They are located in the M-Drive. If our library doesn't have what you need, you may use the internet to find:

- Public domain media
- Free stock media
- Creative Commons media

Public domain and free stock media do not need to be cited; however, Creative Commons media always requires a citation. You may phrase Creative Commons citations however you would like, as long as you follow these parameters: 

- list the title of the content and hyperlink it to the source
- list the author or owner of the content and hyperlink to their profile page
- list the applicable Creative Commons license and hyperlink to the deed

Example: “Furggelen afterglow” by Lukas Schlagenhauf (CC BY-ND 2.0) 

For obvious reasons, you are never permitted to use commercially licensed media in any of our products. Additionally, you must edit out any logos from other companies that appear in the images and videos you use, unless we have permission from those companies to display their logos.

Helpful Resources

The company currently has a subscription to Envato Elements, an online library of high-quality stock images, videos, music, sound effects, graphics, fonts, web templates, presentation templates, and more. You can download as many assets as you want under our subscription as long as you are signed into the company account. 

The company also has a subscription to Artlist and Artgrid. Artlist is an online library of stock music and stock sound effects. Artgrid is an online library of stock footage. Similar to Envato, you can download as many assets as you would like under our subscriptions as long as you are signed into the company account. 

Note: Login credentials for the Envato, Artlist, and Artgrid accounts are saved in LastPass.

The following online sources can also be helpful:

- Pixabay (free stock images, illustrations, vectors, videos, music, and sound effects)
- Pexels (free stock images and videos)
- Public Domain Pictures (free public domain images)
- Pixnio (free public domain images)
- Smithsonian Open Access (free public domain images)
- Library of Congress (free public domain images)
- Openverse (Creative Commons licensed images)
- WikiCommons (Creative Commons licensed images, sounds, and videos)
- Flaticon (free vector icons and stickers)