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Design & Content

Get a fractional specialist working in your Unsplash and Pexels accounts

You already know where to find free licensed imagery. What you need is someone to handle the sourcing, selection, and integration so your content calendar actually moves. Trusty Oak specialists work directly inside your Unsplash and Pexels accounts, pulling images to spec for your brand, organizing collections, and delivering assets into whatever publishing or design tool you use downstream. This is hands-on execution, not guidance on how to do it yourself.

What our team does with Unsplash / Pexels

Concrete work our fractional specialists take on inside your Unsplash / Pexels account. No vague promises.

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Build and maintain branded image collections

We create organized Unsplash and Pexels collections segmented by content type, campaign, or team so your writers and designers stop hunting for assets from scratch each time. Collections are labeled with consistent naming conventions and updated on a recurring schedule as new content needs arise. You get a living library that reflects your visual direction, not a dumping ground of random downloads.

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Source imagery to creative briefs and brand guidelines

When you share a content brief, campaign theme, or mood board, we translate that into targeted searches across both platforms and deliver a curated shortlist with download-ready files. We apply filters for orientation, color palette, and resolution to match your specs before anything lands in your shared folder or design tool. Every image delivered is confirmed free for commercial use under the applicable license.

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Audit existing image libraries for license compliance and quality

If your team has been downloading and using images without a clear tracking system, we conduct a full audit of what you have, flag anything with unclear provenance, and replace non-compliant assets with properly licensed alternatives from Unsplash or Pexels. We document the audit results in a simple tracker so you have a record for legal or brand review. This is especially useful before a rebrand or website migration.

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Organize and tag downloaded assets in your DAM or shared drive

Images pulled from Unsplash and Pexels are only useful if your team can find them later. We rename files using your naming convention, apply metadata tags, and drop assets into the correct folders inside tools like Google Drive, Dropbox, Notion, or a dedicated DAM like Bynder or Brandfolder. The result is a searchable, organized asset library that reduces duplicate downloads and version confusion.

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Integrate image sourcing into your content production workflow

We connect your image sourcing process to the tools your team already uses, whether that means pulling assets into a Canva brand kit, uploading to a WordPress media library, or adding images directly into a Webflow CMS collection. We handle the transfer steps between Unsplash or Pexels and your publishing environment so writers and editors are never blocked waiting for visuals. Handoff documentation is included so anyone on your team can follow the same process.

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Support visual consistency across multi-channel content programs

For teams publishing across blog, email, social, and paid channels, we source platform-specific image variants from Unsplash and Pexels in the correct dimensions and aspect ratios for each channel. We maintain a reference sheet mapping content types to image specs, and we update it as platform requirements change. This removes the back-and-forth between content and design teams over sizing and formatting every time a new piece goes out.

How Trusty Oak supports Unsplash / Pexels workflows

How the Unsplash / Pexels handoff works

During onboarding, your dedicated Client Success Manager reviews how your team currently sources and manages imagery, identifies gaps in organization or compliance, and builds a Strategic Delegation Plan that maps Unsplash and Pexels tasks to a fractional specialist. We work inside your accounts and existing tools, not in a separate environment, so nothing needs to be rebuilt after the engagement ends. Every collection, naming convention, and workflow we set up is documented so your internal team can maintain or expand it independently. You review and approve the approach before we execute, and we check in regularly as your content needs change.

Common Unsplash / Pexels workflows we build

A few of the most common workflows our team has deployed with Unsplash / Pexels.

1

Content brief received, images sourced and delivered to Canva or Figma

When a content brief is added to your project management tool (Asana, ClickUp, Notion), we search Unsplash and Pexels for matching assets, download the best options, and upload them directly into the relevant Canva design or Figma frame. The designer or writer picks from a pre-vetted set rather than starting a search from scratch.

2

Weekly blog publishing, header images sourced and loaded into WordPress

On a recurring weekly schedule, we pull header images from Unsplash or Pexels based on each post topic, resize them to your site's featured image spec, and upload them into the WordPress media library with alt text and file names already set. Posts are ready to publish without any additional image work from your team.

3

New campaign brief, themed collection built and shared with design team

When a campaign kicks off, we build a dedicated Unsplash or Pexels collection around the campaign theme and share the collection link with your design team in Slack or via a shared folder. The collection is updated throughout the campaign as the creative direction evolves, giving designers a consistent reference point without repeated sourcing requests.

4

Social content calendar, platform-sized images prepped and loaded into Buffer or Later

Working from your monthly social calendar, we source images from Unsplash and Pexels, export them at the correct dimensions for Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook, and schedule them alongside copy inside Buffer or Later. Your social manager reviews a complete draft queue rather than assembling each post individually.

5

Website migration or redesign, image library audited and replaced with licensed assets

Before a site goes live on a new platform, we audit every image in the existing media library, identify assets without confirmed free-use licensing, and replace them with equivalent images sourced from Unsplash or Pexels. We deliver a completed replacement tracker and upload all new assets into the destination CMS, ready for the development team to assign to pages.

What Unsplash / Pexels support costs

Drag the sliders to build a monthly plan that fits your workload.

Executive Assistants
~$35/hour
10 hours $350
Specialists
~$50/hour
20 hours $1,000
Fractional Executives
~$95/hour
0 hours $0
Your monthly budget
$1,350

Starting at $1,000/month. One-time $300 onboarding fee includes your Strategic Delegation Plan.

Book a Discovery Call

Frequently asked questions

For collection building and organization on Unsplash, we typically work inside your account using shared credentials or a team access method you control. For Pexels, most sourcing and downloading can be done without account access, but if you have a Pexels account with saved collections we would need credentials to manage those. You retain full ownership of all accounts and can revoke access at any time.
Both options work within our model. Some clients bring us in for a defined project like a website audit or campaign launch, while others use a recurring monthly hour allocation for ongoing sourcing, collection maintenance, and content calendar support. Ongoing work is billed against your monthly Talent Budget starting at $1,000 per month, with unused hours rolling over. There is a one-time $300 onboarding fee.
Unsplash and Pexels cover most general content needs well, especially for blogs, social, and editorial use. If your brand requires highly specific commercial imagery, consistent model releases for advertising, or exclusive content, a paid library may serve you better. We can help you assess whether your current use case is well-served by free platforms or flag where the limitations are creating real production problems.
Both Unsplash and Pexels use licenses that do not require attribution, but some clients prefer to credit photographers as a best practice. If attribution is part of your workflow, we build it into the delivery process, adding photographer credit in the format you specify to alt text, captions, or a separate credits document. We flag any edge cases where the license terms differ from the standard.
Everything we build lives in your accounts and tools, not ours. Collections, folder structures, naming conventions, and documentation all remain accessible to you after the engagement ends. We provide a handoff summary at the close of any project or engagement so your team knows exactly what was built and how to maintain it going forward.

Let US take over your image sourcing

Book a discovery call and we will audit your current Unsplash and Pexels setup, identify where time is being lost, and map out a prioritized plan for what a fractional specialist can take off your plate starting this month.