How Illustration Can Expand Your Brand
Illustrations are versatile and can be used in various ways to communicate a brand’s personality. Integrate them into marketing, social media, websites, presentations, print, packaging, and more to add character and emotion to a brand’s identity. Friendly, eye-catching illustrations can help humanize a brand and add a touch of fun or even humor. The feeling each brand communicates can vary, from the warmth and empathy of a meditation app to the sleek and futuristic character of a start-up tech brand, the types of illustrations used can reinforce a desired impression.
The job of a logo is to represent, not inform. While some attributes can be attached to a logo or logo system, asking just the logo to communicate every aspect of the brand’s personality is like asking a piece of lettuce to be a salad. Messaging, typography, a color palette, and additional brand assets play a significant role. Other brand assets include patterns, textures, photography, icons, and illustrations. Illustrations support the brand identity system by adding personality and emotion while communicating complex ideas in an attention-grabbing way.
ILLUSTRATION EVOKES EMOTION
Illustrations can communicate in a very genuine, human way. Custom illustrations quickly attract attention, but they also simplify messaging and help the audience feel a specific way. By using strategic colors, expressions, textures, and other design elements, illustrations can strengthen a brand’s connection to its audience.
ILLUSTRATION IS VERSATILE
Illustration is used in a multitude of ways. If they’re vector illustrations, they are easier to scale up and down compared to photography and other marketing assets. Depending on the file type of the illustration, the color or the arrangement of design elements can be adjusted to work in multiple situations. Incorporating Illustration into Information Design can help users understand how to complete an action. For example, illustrations can walk a user through a task like creating a new account for an app or installing a Wi-Fi extender in their home.
If a brand has a mascot, that mascot could be performing many actions, locking a door to communicate security, laying back in a lawn chair to illustrate that a task is easy, or ensuring that everything has been taken care of. One example of illustration being versatile is the robot mascot for dotnet. There is a website to create a dotnet bot buddy for yourself, and on GitHub, more illustrated scenes of the dotnet bot are available. Our client, James Montemagno, had a video series where he educated others on how to use dotnet. Since it is recognizable in that community, we integrated the dotnet bot into the video thumbnail images. The extensive image library of the dotnet bot was a great resource, allowing us to communicate abstract topics about coding in the thumbnail.
Integrating illustration into your brand system can be a powerful communication tool. We created numerous vector illustrations for Birch Aquarium at Scripps in San Diego. They’ve used these illustrations in everything from business cards and print marketing to signage and social media to connect with their patrons.
COMMUNICATE COMPLEX IDEAS QUICKLY
With the immediacy of technology and the creation of social media, humans have extremely short attention spans. The average human attention span has decreased by 25% from 2000 to 2015 and can be as short as 2 seconds. That’s not a lot of time to communicate to your audience. Because of this, ideas must be concise and easily expressed, or your audience, potential customers, or readers will lose interest. An illustration can communicate complex ideas, allowing a target audience to understand those ideas quickly.
STOCK ILLUSTRATION
Stock illustrations can be a good option if you are on a tight budget or timeline. They still require someone with knowledge of design software (Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Sketch, etc.) to alter their colors and composition. While they can be a great option, stock illustrations have their limits. Using stock Illustrations can lead to inconsistent styles, affecting brand representation. Some illustrators sell packs of many different designs in a specific style. Those kinds of packs are limited, and the chances are low that these illustrations will work for every need. Often, the generic audience of stock artwork means the illustrations can’t communicate a complex idea, leading to non-specific, generalized artwork. There is also the possibility that another organization has purchased the same illustrations.
CUSTOM ILLUSTRATION
Custom illustrations communicate a specific idea and have more of an opportunity to be unique, allowing a higher chance of connecting directly with your audience. They are more expensive than stock illustrations and require more time to create, but they solve a definite problem, are more cost-effective, and should require less work and time for an audience to understand. Over time, unique illustrations can also become recognizable and distinct to an audience. The goal is if a viewer scrolls through Instagram, your post stands out and looks and feels like your brand!
NEXT STEPS
If you see the value of illustration for your brand and want to hire a designer or illustrator, here are a few tips. Think about what you want the illustrations to communicate. If you want to expand your brand identity with a series of illustrations, provide examples and brand guidelines to your designer. If you’re looking for graphics to promote a campaign or event, list how and where the illustration(s) will be used and provide examples of materials for reference. If you have in-house designers, we encourage collaboration between your in-house creative and the illustrator or designer developing the illustrations. We’d also love to hear what you have in mind!