Many companies are leveraging illustrations powerfully to establish their brand identities. There’s no reason why you cannot do the same for your brand. In this article we share insights into How to Make Your Branding Project Awesome With Illustrations.
It is easy to see why an image can speak a thousand words, especially with illustrations. Many brands have recognised how illustrations can implicit narratives more effectively than a simple copy and typography can.
Illustrations set the mood and tone of voice, target a specific audience, and deliver a clear message through rich visuals. What sets illustrations from other graphics is that they provide an intriguing way to tell a brand’s story. It is more relatable and one that the audience can easily identify with.
Its primary advantage is that it can draw attention in a short period of time and can instantly reach an emotional level those other types of graphics can’t.
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Why is Illustration Important in Branding?
Logos, package design, websites, social media posts, and a lot of brand copy tend to make a viewer feel overloaded with information. An illustrative design excellently relays your brand’s message like language graphics.
It subtly communicates a level of thought compared to merely stating a fact. It somehow gives a hint of a person behind a brand so that a better story is delivered to the audience.
The digital world is so fast-paced that images that effectively communicate become very powerful in terms of establishing a connection to the consumers. Illustrations allow you to do just that. People can easily relate to illustrations because they are able to capture emotion, enough to engage the viewer.
Another important aspect of illustration that makes it essential for branding purposes is that you can easily create a system that contains the brand illustration design assets. This will largely help in maintaining consistency in your branding efforts.
It is obvious that you need to be consistent if you are aiming to increase brand awareness and encourage engagement. With consistent illustrations, the audience will be able to identify your brand, understand the brand message, and will most likely be loyal to you.
When to Use Illustrations
There is no doubt how illustrations can greatly complement any branding strategy. It is such a nifty tool to communicate your brand ideals and values without using too many words.
You cannot, however, just give in to your interest in using illustrative elements without knowing about how you can use them effectively. If you want to incorporate illustrations into your brand, you first have to consider the following:
- Budget. Your resources will dictate how you can have illustrations for your brand. Can you afford to pay for an in-house illustrator? Or would you rather illustrate design, create patterns and simple icons along with your existing assets?
- Target Audience. You need to know who and where your audiences are so that they can definitely see your illustrations. It would be such a waste of time and resources if you are not able to research which channels your target audience frequents.
- Aesthetics. How your illustrations look matters because it will either add impact to your brand or push the viewer away. You must put emphasis on aesthetics because you are aiming to gain instant attention. More importantly, the design should not only look good but must also be identifiable to your brand. It must have all the elements that contribute to your identity, such as colour, typography, and style.
How to Use Illustrations for Branding
Illustrations have a unique power to make any brand stand out. It strengthens your brand identity in a lot of ways so you must definitely look into how it can benefit your branding project. Amplify your branding game through illustrations with the following tips:
- Use of Texture. Textures bring a layer of impact to a design. There are tons of possibilities in creating different textures, such as adding details, patterns, and shadowing.
- Consistent Perspective. Whether you choose to have a flat projection or have 2D and 3D illustrations is all up to you. What matters most is being consistent with your perspective in order to not make the viewer confused.
- Wise Choice of Colours. There are infinite colour possibilities but the real question is whether you have chosen the right ones for your illustrations. Typically, using illustrations in branding means not going astray from the established colour palette of the brand. If the design calls for it, you can have different colours as long as they complement with the brand colours and that it will help deliver a clearer message.
- Creating Characters. It can be fun to create illustrative characters but you need to figure out how you can fit them into the brand’s narrative. A character must preserve the brand’s identity. It must be taken as an opportunity to show the brand’s personality.
- Add Appropriate background. The background in an illustration should be able to enrich the message, not add confusion. There is a risk of over cluttering the design when using backgrounds so you have to be very careful with it. You can use it to emphasise the context by highlighting the relevant details needed to understand the message.
- Establish Illustration Guidelines. It is quite challenging to maintain consistency across all your branding assets. When it comes to creating illustrations, creating a guideline and establishing protocols for using illustrations will definitely help. You can save a ton of time and resources if you are able to create an illustration system that details the elements that should be included in future illustrations.
The clever use of illustrations in branding is becoming a trend because they play a major role in creating the overall look of your brand. Your illustrative style speaks to your customers and should give them a preview of what your brand is all about.
The goal is to make the audience relate to your brand by showing them who you truly are through illustrations. At the end of the day, you can reach the audience in a fast, effective, and emotional way with creative storytelling using illustrations.
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Author Bio
Shelly Solis is a blogger with various experiences writing about digital marketing, telehealth, SaaS, business, IT, tourism, and infrastructure management. She is the co-founder of SaaSLaunchr: SaaS Marketing Agency dedicated to digital marketing services for SaaS businesses.