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Storyblocks' 2019 Trend Guide Reveals The Continuing Creative Connection To Content

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Last year when we looked at the coming trends in creative content as presented by Storyblocks, the focus was squarely on creating and consuming authentic content that reflects our daily lives. Storyblocks has just released its 2019 Creative Trends guide to give us content creators and consumers a glimpse into what is on the horizon for the next year of content consumption.

Content has become almost as important to our daily lives as oxygen. While we can probably sustain some amount of time without consuming even the slightest amount of content, the truth is that we see it in almost every part of our digital lives. Whether through ads served up on Facebook or Snapchat, or as pieces of visual art to enhance articles and website design. Our eye meat craves content, our brains are trained by it and it is being created almost as fast as we can consume it. So saddle up to the content buffet kids.

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This realization about content is hammered home by how much of the content we consume imitates life. "I was surprised by how short the feedback loop between mainstream media, pop culture and stock media has become," Storyblocks CEO TJ Leonard tells me via email. "In the past, that loop played out over the course of weeks or months."

After analyzing the results of over 85 million searches, Storyblocks discovered that major news events like the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal (searches for 'Facebook' +60%), the Kavanaugh confirmation ('trial' +735%), and the devastating wildfire and hurricane seasons ('weather' +281%) saw immediate impact within the search data. In this, we can clearly see the impact current events, especially on a global scale, impact the type of content that is being produced and circulated.

As much as we craved content that encompassed the news of the day there was a clear trend that perhaps some groups were seeking a respite from all the negativity. Continues Leonard, "More Millennials turned to non-traditional sources for news, a trend we believe is a direct reaction to 'fake news' dominating feeds. We saw heightened interest in 'news intros,' (+146%) 'news backgrounds,' (+216%) and 'virtual studios' (+69%) as these DIY digital outlets built audiences."

On a lighter note (one not related to the news), our constant need to feed at the automatic trough of the content machine opened up the need for more interactive and enhanced visual content. Searches related to 'VFX', 'transitions', 'smoke' and 'fire effects' all saw a substantial increase. "When you zoom out and think about trends like increasing consumption of pure-play digital news outlets and the desire to continually shorten production cycles, it makes sense," said Leonard.

In the coming year, Storyblocks expects a bit of the same with a stronger nod towards authenticity and inclusivity than past years as this category of content picks up momentum. Storyblocks also predicts a sea change in the creative workflow itself, as searches for things like Adobe After Effects templates reached new highs. This signals our addiction to content and the lengths and efforts that go into creating it. To that end, we also love to create content. The ouroboros of content will never be content.

You can check out the entire Storyblocks 2019 Creative Trends guide here.


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