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Masterfile and Crestock Acquired by Design Pics & Integrated to Their Platform

Amos Struck

June 20, 2020

Interesting news in the stock photo industry! Stock photography company Design Pics has recently announced the acquisition of renowned agency Masterfile and its microstock subsidiary Crestock. 

Both outlets will now be part of Design Pics’ family of brands and will enrich their offer for both customers and artists, providing a flow of freshly new images for the collections and increased exposure and revenue opportunities for contributing photographers. 

Design Pics: A Canadian Umbrella Company in Stock Media

Design Pics is a Canada-based company that focuses on stock media for almost 20 years. And they have been actively acquiring other businesses to expand business opportunities for themselves and their contributing artists. 

From their flagship proprietary agency and website Design Pics, you can now access assets from all of the brands under their umbrella which include Disability Images, The Irish Image Collection, First Light, Pacific Stock, Alaska Stock, Axiom Photographic, AgStock Images, and now also Masterfile and Crestock. 

They’re certainly building a varied and well-supplied catalogue with images for every occasion and theme. 

Masterfile + Crestock: RM and RF Stock Media Brands 

Masterfile is a Canadian, traditional stock photography agency that’s been in the industry since the 1980s. Like many such traditional businesses, they specialised in Rights Managed licenses but they added the Royalty-Free licensing option in later years when it became the more popular for digital imagery. 

In 2010, Masterfile bought Crestock, a promising company founded in 2005 that is what the industry calls a microstock agency, that specialises in licensing royalty-free images via web, at very low per-image prices but establishing a minimum purchase, and that later gained notoriety thanks to a collection of celebrity stock photos. See more in our Crestock review.

And now, through an asset purchase, Design Pics owns both brands and has added them to their offer, diversifying their content and licensing options as images from Masterfile and Crestock will be available on Design Pics, and contributors from Design Pics’ network will make their work available on the newly acquired brands as well. 

Design Pics is One Marketplace to Explore

Having now added two well-established stock photo brands to their platform, Design Pics is proving to be a stock media supplier worth knowing and exploring. 

With collections as relevant and specialised as Disability Images and expert RM licensing with the aid of Masterfile, plus great RF images aplenty, this could well be the place where you find everything you need in stock photos, illustrations and videos. 

Have a look at Design Pics' offer and let us know your thougockhts!