The agency's new look and direction unveiled today at a press event in London includes a newly redesigned website that can now be viewed with or without pictures, reminding users of Google's streamlined homepage.

However, the biggest change for Alamy is the launch of the Creative Collection, which will feature "a handpicked selection of contributors who supply imagery that has a strong creative bias that will appeal to advertising and design customers," a spokeswoman told BJP ahead of the launch. "It is very much about the aesthetic qualities of the imagery."

The Creative Collection will replace the Commercial Collection, which was a beta project. "As a result of feedback received and analyzing search data we have decided to take a different approach," said Alamy's spokeswoman.

In a statement, CEO James West said: "We've listened carefully to what our customers have been telling us. They want the best of both worlds - millions of images to choose from and blazingly fast search tools to help them narrow down the search - without changing the stuff they like and use every day."

He added: "Our competitors are struggling with bloated and unsustainable organisational structures in a contracting economy - we see a real opportunity to leverage our efficiency and technical know-how to open up some exciting new opportunities."

Speaking at a press event this morning, Alamy's CEO said that the search engine was also updated to offer more filters to customer buyers. A left side column on a search result page allows the user to refine its search according to location, age, orientation, image type, etc.

The engine's speed has also been improved, with Alamy claiming to have one of the fastest search engines in the industry. In a side-by-side test, an Alamy search result page loaded in 2.2s while the same search took 6.6s on Getty Images' website, said West.

For more information, visit www.alamy.com.