Did you know that a spotlight in graphic design trends for 2023 is on illustrations? They’re a fun way to connect with your market while appearing professional.
Join us as we dive into how to create illustrations below.
Illustration vs. Drawings
Let’s settle the debate once and for all. Drawings and illustrations are both art, but only one focuses on marketing—that’s the latter.
Now, why is that? Drawings convey a more personal experience compared to illustrations. Illustrations need to be understood by the collective.
Let’s dive deeper into what and why you use illustrations for your brand identity.
Illustrations are an excellent avenue for you to use for your brand since they creatively simplify your message, like how logo design represents you. It also gives you that friendly vibe that people love.
There are three purposes that an illustration can do for you:
- Inform
- Influence
- Persuade.
Depending on what you want to do, this style will give you that extra boost in marketing. But what makes an illustration an illustration?
The answer could be confusing cause you can also have a drawing as part of an illustration, but it always lies in the purpose of the creation.
Like any design, the fundamentals of illustrations are
Types of Illustrations
Moving forward, let’s get into what illustrations you can have for your business before you create one for yourself.
Creating illustrations allows you to strengthen your visual marketing. There’s an 80% increase in engagement when you have eye-catching images.
With that in mind, let’s dive into the types. There are two main types: traditional and modern. But today, we’ll focus on modern techniques since we live in the digital age.
Also, depending on the industry, you can have various types. But we’re narrowing them down to the generally used designs for branding.
2D Illustration
This is a flat type of illustration. Play with movement and perspectives to grab the attention of your market with this style.
3D Illustration
Compared to the style above, the 3D design gives the illusion of jumping out of the medium. It invigorates your image to give the impression of what your product or service may look like in real life.
Free Hand
As the name suggests, your illustrator reins free to interpret the logo brief or content given to them, often used in recreation, animation, and storyboarding.
Infographic
This style has the purpose of informing. Infographic design is a mix of two elements: visuals and information. It helps your market digest your message easier and in a fun summary.
Line Art
Another literal illustration, line art allows you to create modern minimalistic visuals with depth.
Psychedelic Illustration
If you want to play with vibrant colors that assault your viewers nostalgically and positively, psychedelic visuals are for you.
Vector
This style allows you to create images using coordinates. You’d often save it in popular file formats like PDF, PNG, and more.
Vintage
Lastly, we have a popular style that’s seen both in graphic design and logo trends. Emulate the classy and punk vibe these eras from the 60s to the 90s bring to the table.
How to Create Illustrations
We know each designer has their design process, but below is a general idea of how to create your illustration. We have six easy tips to aid in your branding endeavor.
- Create the Mood Board
- Pair with A StoryboardÂ
- Start to Sketch
- Refine with Details
- Finalize with Keywords
- Present to the World
1. Create the Mood Board
Before anything else, get inspired and look for ideas. A great way to collate your thoughts and inspiration is through a mood board.
You can add your color scheme, images you may want to incorporate, font style, words or phrases that speak to you, and more. This technique helps you get into the zone and better understand the purpose behind your illustration.
2. Pair with A Storyboard
Next, you need a story that’ll stick with your viewer. Plan your audience’s journey and how you’ll hit right to the heart to gain their trust and patronage.
It could be an emotional ad with a family struggling with communication during the last Christmas season. Make it a bit tear-jerking and subtly insert yourself into the picture by adding your logo on the packaging design or label design of the people in the illustration.
As long as there’s a coherent timeline and how-to in your illustration, you successfully paired your mood board and storyboard.
3. Start to Sketch.
Create the visuals you’ll pair with the information you have. It could be line art, an outline, or a general rough draft of what you want to convey. It’s best to have a monochromatic color scheme to avoid getting distracted by the colors and details you want to add to enhance your viewer’s experience.
4. Refine with Details
After the sketch, you can refine your rough draft with color. You can base your palette on color theory to better your image. Also, pair your visuals with straightforward typography as well to lessen the messiness of your design.
Check the depth and framing of your design to direct your viewers’ eyes to certain parts of your illustration. You can play with their eyes with an abstract design or gradient. Those two styles help your audience’s eyes glide up, down, and side-to-side of your design.
5. Finalize with Keywords
Don’t forget to add relevant words that could boost the standing of your illustration through the description or post with hashtags. Ensure that they’re niche related to help others find you. It never hurts to have some SEO tactics to pair with your design.
6. Present to the World
Lastly, pick a suitable medium and file size to make your upload quicker. Illustrations improve your brand, whether as a blog on a website, Instagram post, YouTube thumbnail, Twitter post, and more.
Illustrations for the Win!
Did we convince you to use illustrations for your brand? If so, leave a comment below.
If you need more help with your brand design, like business cards, menus, LinkedIn banners, and more, don’t hesitate to contact our freelance designers or customize a template.
Happy new year, and may your business continue to boom!
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Written by DesignCrowd on Monday, January 9, 2023
DesignCrowd is an online marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services by providing access to freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world.