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Noun Project Photos — Art-quality photos that celebrate diversity and inclusion
Noun Project now offers professionally curated, art-quality photos that celebrate diversity and represent a more inclusive world. Because representation matters.
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arteen arabshahi
The moment I've been waiting for!
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Hello Product Hunters!
Today, we’re thrilled to launch Noun Project Photos and share it with all of you.
We founded Noun Project in 2011 to build a global visual language that unites us. Over the last decade, through initiatives like Iconathons and the Redefining Women collection, we’ve championed the creation of more civic-minded content to support more equal and accurate representation in iconography.
Visual language has the power to shape, reinforce, and change our perceptions about the world. It is more important than ever that the visual resources we have access to, from the classroom to the boardroom, are inclusive, free from outdated stereotypes, and empower creation in a socially conscious way.
Guided by the same vision and principles we were founded on, we are now offering professionally curated, art-quality photos in addition to iconography. The photos available on our platform have been carefully selected to celebrate diversity and support the critical work of moving our society toward a more equitable future for all.
We built Noun Project Photos around three key principles:
1. Mission-Driven Curation: our growing, professionally curated collection features authentic, beautiful images that celebrate diversity and inclusion.
2. Art Quality, Yet Affordable: all of our photos are available at price points for any budget, from free downloads to high-res jpgs.
3. Worry-Free Licenses: support photographers and have peace of mind with clear image usage rights, including model and property releases.
You can learn more about Noun Project Photos at blog.thenounproject.com or dive into the collection at thenounproject.com. This is just the beginning and we’re looking forward to building this collection with our community.
Happy to answer any questions!
@sofyapolyakov Hi. I was super enthousiast at first, then I used the search engine for icons. Then I got disppointed about the sterotyped results I got for the term family: mainly A man-like silhouette+woman like silhouette+2 kids. Same thing for couple (0 gay/lesbian)...I had to scrolled down a lot to get less stereotyped icons. All silhouettes are mainly classics/traditional ones, rare are frizzy hairs... not more than other website not labelled as inclusive. Maybe something to review in order to serve your purpose of celebrating diversity.
@cecile_rofidal Thank you for sharing this feedback, and sharing our enthusiasm for building a more inclusive collection. I completely agree with you about wanting to expand beyond the classic/traditional silhouettes. We strongly encourage our creators to consider this when designing their icons, and have provided guidance on "Depicting Race in Iconography" on our blog. Regarding your other feedback, when I searched for “Family” on thenounproject.com, I see it represented pretty abstractly in the top 5 of our first 12 icon results (top 2 rows) that appear on search. By abstractly I mean open to interpretation of man, woman, non-binary, children vs. adults. For the term “Couple”, it looks like we feature same-sex couples in icons appearing in positions 9 and 10 in our search results of nearly 4,700 icons. Diversity and representation are built into the very fabric of our work with both icons and our photo collections, which is why we emphasize it both through the content we accept to our platform as well as through our search algorithm.
Our database of over 3 million icons has been built by individual creators all over the world who design and submit icons that we then moderate for quality and appropriateness. In past years, we have hosted a number of Iconathons that address a gap in our content or a need for a specialized set of icons around a certain theme, such as our "Redefining Women" icon collection. While we have not been convening creators for Iconathons during the pandemic, we continue to moderate the thousands of icons submitted to our site each day to prioritize those that are high-quality, unique, and reflect our commitment to more equal and accurate representation in visual language. New icons are consistently added on a rolling basis. If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to email info@thenounproject.com. Thanks again.
@thenounproject @sofyapolyakov thank you for taking the time to reply.
The blog post is insightful and enriching.
I did the searches again. For both searches, the results are different from what I got few days ago. Fantastic!
I love the idea of the Iconathons. I look forward to see the outputs of the next one. I am convinced that all together steps by steps we will get to an accepting society, accepting of the particularities of all. Keep up the effort!
Congrats on the launch! Would there be a lesser fee for the API for startups? I see Noun Project has a great icons and photos. Something friendly and affordable with would be helpful. 5000 calls seems very less.
This is a greta project with a beautiful purpose. A soft and compelling tool to change the world! congrats.
To keep up the inclusive spirit, it would be great that your site is adjustable for various impairment (colourblind, etc...) and that you offer cions and pics that are ethically designed.
