Maps in stock photo sites are not designed for use in presentations. I hope designers are reading below to find out what is wrong with them:
- Crops are focussed on the target country. But why crop so many of the surrounding areas out? Israel for example has a vertical shape. I would prefer to put in a map of the entire Middle East, and put text boxes over those part of the map I do not need. It will look much better than a narrowly cropped map
- People use blunt colours and/or gradients. As a designer, I want to set the colour tone of the presentation myself. Much better options are muted greys, or better, vector files I can recolour myself.
- Map designers add city names hardwired in ugly typography. Also, they add roads and other useless geographical information. I will not be using these maps to find my way, if I need to add cities, I would like to do it myself, in the font of the presentation deck.
So how do I pick maps in stock photo sites? Usually, I go for vector images for a far wider area than I need. I zoom in and strip out all the information I do not need.