The One Keyword Half of All Top Images Share
Spoler: We found one five-letter keyword that shows up in more than half of last week's Adobe Stock winners - wait until you see which one.
The Hidden Link among Three Very Different Charts
Adobe Stock hosts millions of assets, yet only a tiny slice climbs into the weekly top-seller lists. From 23–29 June 2025 we scraped those lists for three asset types — illustrations, photos, and vectors — finding 120 best-sellers in each group, 360 files in total. We pulled the public metadata, kept the raw keyword arrays, then lined them up in one long sheet.
Parsing keywords looks dull, but patterns jump out fast when the sample is clean. We split every list into single-word tokens, forced lowercase, trimmed stray spaces, and counted hits. A single rule guided the pass: one keyword equals one vote, no weighting, no fuzzy matches. This simple loop let the data speak with no fancy math.
The result surprised us. Out of 360 elite files, 207 include the word design. That is 57.5 % of the whole batch. Each category crosses the halfway mark except photos, which still land just above fifty percent. Illustrations and vectors show even stronger alignment.
+---------------+ Total Assets + With “design” + Share (%) +
| Illustrations | 120 | 63 | 52.5 |
| Photos | 120 | 61 | 50.8 |
| Vectors | 120 | 83 | 69.2 |
| All | 360 | 207 | 57.5 |
+---------------+--------------+---------------+-----------+Those counts make one point clear: labeling your work with design links you to more than half of last week’s most-purchased assets.
Why “Design” Wins Keyword Space
Buyers search with intention. They may not know if they need a photo, an illustration, or a vector until they see it. The term design feels broad but purposeful. It suggests planned composition, style, and professional polish, yet it keeps the door open to many subjects. When a buyer flicks the filter to “Most popular this week,” they still type a guiding word. Design bridges that gap.
Contributors know this. Many copy tags from past uploads. When a file with design sells well, the habit reinforces itself. Over time the word moves from helpful descriptor to required ritual. Our scrape gives the clearest proof yet of the loop in action.
Vectors lean hardest on the tag because many vector packs serve as building blocks for larger layouts. “Square grunge texture,” “watercolor sunburst,” “hand-drawn stripe bundle” — each file offers parts for posters, apps, or packaging. Buyers who browse vectors often use design in the query bar, so creators feed the loop.
Illustrations follow close behind. Motion streaks, neon trails, and abstract shapes exist to blend into wider visual systems. Again, tagging with design catches the broad intent of art directors: “I need something that completes my design.”
Photos trail by a few points, yet more than half still carry the label. The hottest photo set last week shows beige linen cloth on white wood. Its keyword block includes “interior design” and simply “design,” signaling to stylists, not tourists. Even a calm lake shot adds “design” to target layout artists who need negative space.
Digging Deeper into the Data
We did not stop at single counts. We ranked every keyword by frequency, then drew heat maps to catch cross-overs. Design topped the chart by a long margin. The next cluster — abstract, background, vector, light, texture — scored well but never broke the halfway mark across all three categories.
Two findings stand out:
- In vectors, design pairs often with abstract and pattern. Buyers clearly chase ready-to-drop motifs.
- In photos, design pairs with lifestyle words such as minimal and aesthetic. It signals décor stock rather than documentary scenes.
These subtle clusters show how a single word shifts its flavor by context yet still points buyers in the right direction.
We also checked for dilution. Does adding design to every upload still help rank? The weekly list says yes. Adobe’s algorithm weighs sales velocity, not only raw relevance, so successful tags keep climbing.
Method Notes for the Curious
Our scraper pinged Adobe’s
public JSON for every asset ID in the weekly “Top Seller” collections at 06:00 UTC each
day. We stored three
fields: content_id, asset_type, and the raw
keywords array. We ignored the rest to keep the test focused.
A second pass ran on 30 June to catch any late movers, but the counts above use the
frozen 29 June snapshot.
We wrote a short Python script to split, normalize, and tally. The code fits in twenty lines. A quick sanity check confirmed no duplicate IDs across categories.
Total processing time on a modest laptop: under one minute.
What This Means for Contributors
If you upload to Adobe Stock you work inside a noisy bazaar. Buyers move fast, sorting by freshness, sale count, or price. They still type broad guide words first. Our snapshot shows that design remains the single most efficient bait across asset classes, beating genre-specific tags by a wide margin.
That does not mean spamming every file with the word. Use it when the image genuinely helps a design process. A random family snapshot gains nothing by the label. But if your content offers clean space, clear focal points, and strong shapes, design is a match.
Color Hooks That Keep Selling
First we checked which color terms join design most often. We counted every appearance of 27 simple color words inside the 360-asset dataset from 23–29 June 2025, then broke out the share that travels with design.
+ Color Word + Hits with “design” + All Hits + Share with “design” (%) +
| black | 54 | 74 | 73.0 |
| white | 52 | 77 | 67.5 |
| pink | 37 | 42 | 88.1 |
| blue | 32 | 46 | 69.6 |
| green | 29 | 47 | 61.7 |
| red | 25 | 40 | 62.5 |
| gold | 23 | 31 | 74.2 |
| orange | 17 | 27 | 63.0 |
| yellow | 14 | 20 | 70.0 |
| beige | 14 | 22 | 63.6 |Pink tops the loyalty chart. When creators label a pink asset, they almost always add design. Black and white follow because they sit at the root of every palette. Vector podium backdrops prove the point: look at their dense tag clusters that bind “black,” “gold,” and “design” in a single breath.
For photos we find summer drinks on a blue table. The list still tucks in “blue background” and confirms that even lifestyle stock leans on a color-plus-design combo.
Why does this pairing matter? Buyers usually start with a color mood. Adding design keeps the query broad yet targeted. A director who types “pink design” receives vectors, posters, and dreamy photos in one scroll. That blended feed raises exposure for every creator who chose the tag.
Cultural Keywords Ride the Same Wave
Next we scanned for regional words. Japanese motifs explode across the illustration and vector lists, while design shadows nearly every hit. One bamboo frame set holds 40+ tags, yet “design,” “japan,” and “traditional” still sit side by side.
+ Region Tag + Hits with “design” + All Hits +
| japan | 23 | 30 |
| asia | 15 | 15 |
| chinese | 15 | 15 |
| japanese | 14 | 14 |
| asian | 13 | 13 |
| latin | 0 | 11 |
| indian | 8 | 8 |Almost every file that signals East Asian culture also carries design. Latin themes do not follow the same rule. Only one Latin-tagged item contains design, perhaps because those files lean toward lifestyle photos, not layout-ready surfaces.
Does the Word Help Newcomers or Reward Veterans?
One question sits at the center of every contributor’s mind: Does adding “design” help fresh uploads climb faster than old favorites?
We used each file’s numeric content ID as a rough age proxy; Adobe assigns IDs in rising order. The average ID for assets with design lands at 1 372 020 147, while the no-design group averages 1 382 525 527. Median values tell the same story. Older IDs dominate the design cohort, so the word seems to keep legacy work visible rather than turbo-charge new drops.
+ Group + Mean ID + Median ID +
| design | 1,372,020,147 | 1,367,475,995 |
| no design | 1,382,525,527 | 1,409,566,585 |
Auto (Diff)The gap equals roughly 100 million IDs, which tracks to several months of uploads on Adobe Stock. Veteran files tagged with design continue to earn steady sales, pushing them back into the weekly charts long after launch.
Why the Cycle Persists
The loop works like this. A designer buys an asset with room for text, notes the helpful tag set, and searches again next week. They type “abstract blue design background.” Older assets resurface alongside newcomers. Sales refresh ranking signals, so the same items appear again, teaching the next buyer to repeat the query. That feedback keeps the tag evergreen and spans all three asset types.
Practical Takeaways for Contributors
- Choose color words first, then add design when the file clearly serves layouts.
- Pair region tags with design only if the pattern or subject is the focus, not mere context. A city skyline at sunset needs no extra word.
- Use negative space wisely. Files with breathing room rank high because designers crave copy space. The color-plus-design tag combo wins only if the image physically supports type or logos.
Looking Ahead
Trend cycles shift, yet one fact remains: a single common word lets wildly different assets ride the same search stream. We will revisit the dataset in August to see whether new tags eclipse design or extend its reign. For now the evidence is clear. If your illustration, photo, or vector feeds a layout, the smartest five letters you can type sit right under your fingers.