How to Add Illustration to Your Brand
Illustration is one of our favorite things about design. As we’ve developed our skillset over the years, we’ve found that we enjoy “doodling” more and more. Not only do we love to create the graphics, but we also love how it can really transform a piece or brand. Today, we’re going to share 6 ways for you to add illustration to your brand.
To demonstrate how you can add illustrations to your branding, we are going to walk you through these 6 ideas we brought to life with a local non-profit that we love, Box of Balloons.
1. Make a Scene, Paint a picture
Making a scene is a great way to add visuals without using photography. I some instances, photography isn’t an option or a good choice. This scene was created for the Box of Balloons Annual Birthday Bash. The excitement in the illustration gets people excited to attend the event while also featured this year’s theme of camping.
2. Make a Pattern
Patterns are such a fun way to add illustration and interest to branding. In fact, this may also be one of the easiest ways. We love patterns, and this one was created for Box of Balloons and it could be used in so many places, such as, social media, on the website, and even the business cards!
If we are really going all out, how cool would it be to have this printed on a table cloth at their donation table?!
3. Use icons to break up blocks of text.
Icons are a great way to add visual interest to a large area of writing and we highly recommend it! For example, here’s a way that illustrations could be used as icons…
When DIYing your brand, be cautious about loading up space with so much text and not enough visuals (AND whitespace). Using icons will help your eyes to flow through the page, and introduces a great opportunity to add illustration to your brand. I could have listed out these 5 ways to support Box of Balloons in a numbered list… but isn’t this way more fun? I used a different illustration for each number as a creative way to some 5 options. Any time you’re listing things out, think about if you could also add an illustrated icon to each one. We love doing this on websites too!
(NOTE: If you’re using something like canva or freepik.com, be sure all your icons have a similar style. This is really important that they all look cohesive otherwise it will look sloppy and unprofessional.)
4. Promos (shirts and buttons)
Adding illustrations to promotional products, aka SWAG, is always a good idea! Here are two examples of our favorite promos. We could make and design buttons for days, and it’s such a fun freebie to receive too. People love buttons and stickers, and what a great way to show their support! Sticker Mule is a great place to order custom stickers and really fun swag for your event, so you get $10 off by using our link!
5. Tell a Story
Share a story by using graphics that tell different parts of your brand. Here’s an example of how you could tell a story of children donating balloons and a gift for a little girl’s party. You can really get and complex or as simple as you’d like. Just imagine if your brand had its own comic book… what kind of story would it tell?
6. Social Media
Social Media is the last one because this is where your brand gets an overview. As you’re using illustrations throughout your marketing pieces, you should also be using them on social because this is where all your updates live. Creating graphics can be a way to add visual interest to your page without just using photographs. Here’s an example of what the Box of Balloons instagram account might look like using some of the ideas from above.
We hope you loved our ideas on how to add illustration to your brand. Be sure to tag us with the new things you create! We’d love to see!
If you don’t feel like you’re quite ready to tackle illustrating on your own, there are some great stock photography sites out there for you to use, just be sure all your graphics are done in a similar style and brand colors. If you’re not feeling quite ready to tackle it yet, that’s what we’re here for. Contact us if you’d like to add illustration to your brand!
