A Look at Parking and Mobility’s Misunderstood Visual Identity

By Brenda Hanna

As a graphic designer who has spent more than twenty years sourcing images for the Canadian Parking Association, I’ve developed an unusual superpower: I can predict exactly how a stock photography website is going to misrepresent parking before I even
press “search.”

After two decades of scrolling through dark garages, confused drivers, fictional technology, and now AI-generated winter scenes that would give any operator a heart attack, one thing has become abundantly clear:

Stock photography has never really understood parking, and it certainly has never understood mobility.

What follows is a tour through the wonderfully inaccurate visual history of our industry — and why these images matter far more than most people realize.

The Early Years: The “Crime Thriller” Era

When stock platforms first emerged, searching for “parking garage” dropped you straight into a low-budget crime film. The results were comically predictable: shadowy parkades, women clutching their purses while glancing nervously over their shoulder, lurking silhouettes behind concrete pillars, and inexplicable fog. Always fog.

These weren’t just clichés. They reinforced a fear-based narrative that parking was unsafe at a time when operators were actively improving lighting, visibility, and security — and what’s surprising is that this type of imagery still appears in stock libraries today. In many ways, it continues to shape public perception long after the industry has evolved.

Mobile Payment Arrives… and Accuracy Leaves

When mobile payment hit the industry, stock libraries had a perfect opportunity to visually explain how the new process actually worked. Instead, many of the images created more confusion than clarity.

A typical search for “mobile parking payment” would show drivers trying to complete a payment while in motion, distracted at the wheel, and very few visuals accurately represented the real steps involved. Even today, most stock sites still don’t reflect the actual process.

The industry’s message was simple: park first, then pay — safely, on foot, and using the posted instructions. Stock photos told a very different story.

The Meaning of Mobility: What Stock Photos Fail to Capture

The challenge becomes even more obvious when sourcing imagery for the mobility sector. Simply typing in the
word “mobility” triggers a wave of images that have nothing to do with our industry. Stock libraries overwhelmingly associate mobility with aching joints, physiotherapy sessions, wheelchairs, seniors using walkers, and medical or clinical scenes.

In addition to providing safe and accessible parking for persons with disabilities, our industry deals with shared transportation, curbside management, micromobility, EV infrastructure, transit integration, digital payment ecosystems, urban movement, and the way parking interacts with all of these. We talk about mobility in terms of systems, networks, urban flow, and customer experience.

The disconnect is enormous, and it makes visually representing modern mobility incredibly challenging.

Then AI Entered the Chat … And Things Took a Turn

AI-assisted imagery was supposed to elevate stock photography and correct long-standing inaccuracies. Instead, it created a new category I can only describe as “pedestrians behaving recklessly in winter.”

In a recent search for “urban parking in winter,” AI confidently placed pedestrians strolling in live traffic, standing directly in front of moving vehicles, crossing icy lanes while holding lattes, or simply ignoring perfectly clear sidewalks. It’s as if AI learned urban behaviour from a video game tutorial.

This isn’t just comical — it’s unsafe. And it raises a bigger concern: if AI is training itself on decades of already-inaccurate stock images, we risk creating a visual feedback loop that becomes more unrealistic with every generation.

Where We Are Today: Still Catching Up

Even now, as parking evolves into a safe, data-driven, technology-enabled component of city mobility, stock imagery remains stuck in the past. Searches still return neon-lit dystopias, cinematic fog, garages that do not resemble real facilities, and mobility results that look more like healthcare brochures than integrated transportation networks.

In short, the visuals are not keeping up with the industry transformation.

Why These Visuals Actually Matter

It’s easy to laugh — and trust me, I often do — but the implications are real. Images influence how the public interprets safety, technology, pedestrian behaviour, curbside operations, the relationship between parking and mobility, and the broader role of parking in modern city movement. When stock photography shows parking as dark, confusing, outdated, chaotic, or technologically incorrect, it reinforces misconceptions at the exact moment the industry is becoming safer, smarter, and more integrated.

We are building modern mobility ecosystems, yet stock photos are still stuck in the early 2000s.

Time to Update the Visual Story

As curbside management evolves and mobility becomes inseparable from parking, our imagery needs to reflect that reality. We need visuals that depict well-lit, welcoming facilities, pedestrians using actual sidewalks, realistic winter behaviour, accurate mobile-payment interactions, true curbside operations, and parking as a connected, essential part of
urban mobility.

If stock photography starts reflecting reality instead of outdated tropes, public understanding will shift with it.

Until then, I’ll keep scrolling, keep searching, and keep championing imagery that shows who we really are today:

Modern. Integrated. Essential to how cities move.

About the author: Brenda Hanna, Brand and Marketing Manager, Canadian Parking Association

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