Insights · Seeing is Selling
The thinking behind the images.
Every week we write about what actually makes property visualisation work – briefing, cost, craft, verified views and where AI genuinely fits. Genuinely useful, honestly written. It’s called Seeing is Selling. Read the latest below, or get it in your inbox.
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One short, useful read every week for developers, agents, planners and architects – on getting the most out of CGI, film and verified views. Around 80 issues and counting.
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Latest issues
Recent reads.
A selection from the archive – pulled live from our newsletter, so the latest issue is always here.
The Dark Art of View Verification
What AVRs are, when your project needs one, and why the methodology has to be watertight
The Planning Landscape Has Shifted. Has Your Visual Strategy?
What the move toward officer-led decisions means for the CGIs you commission
Where Great CGIs Actually Start
8 viewpoint principles that give your CGIs a stronger foundation
When Less Detail Wins: Choosing the Right Visuals for Planning Stages
Why softer artistic impressions often work better than photorealism in public consultation
Helping Occupiers Shortlist Faster
Get your visuals to do the heavy lifting before conversations even begin
Planning Is About Trust. Here’s How Verified Views Build It
Why accuracy, balance, and visual honesty matter more than persuasion when it comes to approvals
One Building. A Wider Occupier Pool.
How targeted visuals help reduce void risk by speaking to multiple tenant types.
The Hidden Cost of “Good Enough” CGIs
When visuals technically do the job, but commercially fall short
The Visuals That Kill Objections Before They’re Raised
How the right planning visuals reduce resistance, shorten timelines, and protect your programme

A seasonal reflection on light and mood
Finding beauty in the grey and the golden
Your Visuals Should Be Working for You Long Before You’re in the Room – Are They?
Most occupiers shortlist digitally. Here’s how to make sure your scheme survives that first filter.
Let Stakeholders Experience Your Scheme Before It’s Even Built
The power of 360° tours for planning and marketing.
From the studio
Between the issues.
Quicker, less formal thoughts straight from our LinkedIn – the things we notice on shoots, on site and at the screen. Follow along on LinkedIn.
Congratulations to Tritax Big Box on winning planning consent for the Manor Farm data centre. Data centres are complex, and getting the story across to everyone involved is no small thing. It's exactly where a well-crafted, story-driven film earns its place. We created the film in-house at Blink Image -…
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The moment you send out a brochure, it starts going out of date. A PDF, an email, a printed pack – beautifully done. Then a unit lets, a price shifts, a masterplan changes… and suddenly there are a dozen versions of "the truth" sitting in inboxes you'll never see again,…
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'Data centres in space' is a hot topic at the moment – for some bullish people at least. The 13th successful test launch of Starship last week hints at a potential future for this sector. https://lnkd.in/eYABeSEM But it's hard to appreciate the size of this rocket. So I put a…
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I still get goosebumps when I see this building in the flesh. 61 Oxford Street. One of the more complicated facades we’ve worked on. To get accurate reflections we photographed a full 360-context to give a very realistic impression of the finished building. Looks like we need to start on…
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The not so glamorous side of architectural visualisation! (AVR shoot in case you were wondering)
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Architectural photography, and by extension, architectural visualisation, has lots of “rules”. Keep verticals vertical is one of the big ones. And often, yes, you should. But follow it too rigidly on a tall building and you can end up with something technically correct but visually… unhelpful (putting it politely). Like…
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Lighting makes or breaks a CGI. Here's a real-world example of why. I shot this footage yesterday on a bright sunny day in Oxford – ideal conditions, you'd think. But look what happens when both facades catch equal light. The building loses definition. Your eye can't read the form. The…
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I have seen the future. Are you scared? (I'm just glad I'm taller than these things!)
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New-build landscaping always has an awkward phase. The CGI shows mature planting, activity, life. The completed building opens… and the shrubs are… doing their best. That’s normal, of course. Landscapes take time to establish. Businesses take time to move in. Buildings rarely look “finished” the moment practical completion happens. Which…
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14th-century architecture (ish). 21st-century visualisation. We recently completed some work at York Minster. Possibly the oldest building we've ever been involved with. The project is a new step-free ramp into the quire – significant enough that the team needed to visualise it from every conceivable angle before anything was signed…
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Right now, if you walk past this site in the centre of Oxford, this is what you see. Hoardings. Scaffolding. Demolition. Noise. It's hard to get excited about that. But this is what's coming. And suddenly the conversation changes completely. That's why architectural visualisation exists. Not to show off. Not…
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Well done Reggie 2026. 😞
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The developers who get the most from their visualisation budget usually ask a different question at the start. Not "what's this going to cost?" But "what will we need this to do over the next three years?" Last month a client came to us needing CGIs, animations and a development…
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Industrial buildings. Metal boxes. Functional. Dull. Not much to them really. What’s inside is often something else entirely. This image was actually created a few years ago to show that properly. Not a planning CGI. Not a standard marketing render. More a way of showing two things at once -…
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If you call an electrician and they can come tomorrow, that’s either good timing or a slight cause for concern. The best ones are booked out. Not because they’re difficult – but because they’re worth working with. The same is true in visualisation. Good CGIs and films don’t come from…
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Most developers commission a 3D model and get a CGI out of it. That's a bit like buying a kitchen and only ever using the kettle. The 3D model is the foundation. Once it exists, it can generate CGIs, teaser films, full architectural films, 360 tours, interactive models, living images.…
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The AI conversation in our industry is almost entirely about image generation. The most useful thing it does for us has nothing to do with images. It's the admin. The project management. The tasks that used to quietly eat half a day. Having something this capable sat over your shoulder…
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Last week I took my camera into some of Oxford’s lesser-known back streets. Not the tourist trail – the bits in between. The overlooked corners. I ended up in Jericho. Most people recognise St Barnabas Church from the outside – that distinctive campanile tower rising above the canal. But I’d…
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A month ago I posted this. The response suggested it was worth saying again. AI image generation is genuinely impressive – mind blowing in many ways. And potentially even more mind blowing now than a mere 4 weeks ago. Nuts! We use it ourselves, selectively, where it adds value. But…
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