Our graphic design company purchases and uses stock photos all the time for our clients. After more than a decade in the graphic design business we definitely have some stock photo experience under our belt.

Often, our clients want to know if they can reuse images from pieces that we have designed for them.

The answer to that is pretty straightforward: you are not allowed to give permission, lend, share, or resell your royalty (read: paid) stock photos that you have bought and downloaded.

If someone else wants to use that photo, they have to pay for it, too.

For our graphic design agency, this means we can purchase images and use them for clients, but our clients can’t use the photos themselves.

There are differences in licenses; some licenses are more strict and others are more relaxed.

We are allowed to use stock images for clients through “extended stock image licenses,” which allow stock photos to be used commercially. As a graphic design company, most of our work is commercial, so we need these extended licenses on a lot of our photos.

Font licenses are absolutely non-transferable, so keep that in mind as you purchase and share graphic design works with stock art.

Unfortunately, this does mean that we can’t legally share stock photos with our clients, even if we used the photos for them in a project. You only own the photo and have rights to use it if you have purchased the stock art and license. We definitely own the rights to use the images however we want, we just can’t share the rights.

Want a graphic design company to handle all of your stock art, licenses and commercial works? Hit us up. We would love to work with you on all the legalities of stock imagery.