A simple but properly positioned illustration can transform a bland-looking web design into a masterpiece. That is the beauty of frontend web design- it’s always about the small changes and attention to detail. If you want to make stunning web designs, you really do need to know how to use illustrations in your work.
What are illustrations in web design?
An illustration is simply a drawing that carries a message or can be used to express something. Illustrations have been used for hundreds of years as an art form mostly used to communicate or capture moments, messages, and stories that cannot be expressed in any other medium.
In recent years, illustrations have become a big part of web design with big companies such as Google, Airbnb, and Adobe using them quite extensively on their designs. Web designers can make great use of illustrations to transform their pages and communicate to their audiencesmore effectively.
Here are five creative ways you can use illustrations in website design today:
Setting the mood using colorful illustrations
Whether you are creating an event landing page or homepage banner, using an elaborate and color-rich illustration gives you the freedom to set the mood through colors and artwork. You can achieve a lot through simplebutimpactful designs while spending a fraction of the amount you could spend on photography.
Companies have used thematic illustrationsfor a long time to set the mood, theme, or draw attention tosomething new or interesting. You canuse an illustration with loud, and vibrant colors if that is the mood you want to set- say if you are marketing a concert or new product targeting a younger audience. The illustrationcan even bedesigned to create an illusion of how the product or experience is in real life.
Tell stories with illustrations
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a well-designed illustration is probably worth a million or more words. The thing with illustrations is the amount of information you can include in the design without using words. This is one way to tell your brand story or send a message without writing a lot of text.
Use carefully planned and tailor-made illustrations to tellstories about your brand or explain something. A single illustration can replace a whole About Us page if done well. For instance, you can use an illustration to show how a product is created right from the start if that matters to your audience.
Many companies-especially those in the engineering sector- do use illustrations quite extensivelyon their websites. You can even use logo software for your needs to come up with simple but eye-catchingillustrations.Logo design is one of the creative ways you can use illustration to bring out abstract concepts that represent your brand.
Use illustrations to sell your products
Some companiesuse simple and childlike illustrations on their websites and landing pages. Illustrations allow you to create abstract and emotion-eliciting concepts that could be extremely hard to achieve with normal photographs.
You can also use the same approach to connect with your audience through art.Design colorful illustrations showing different characters interacting with your product in extra-ordinary ways. For example, a company marketing scooters could create illustrations of characters flying above traffic on their scooters to drive the point that users can avoid traffic jams easily.
Add illustrations to long and technical articles
Illustrations also come in handy when you want to spice up your content. It could be a long article about a product or an explainer. These articles can be boring and hard to follow for most of your customers. Usecustom illustrations to explain various concepts or break the monotony in large or technical articles.
Use illustrations to draw attention
Illustrations can be used to draw a user’s attention to a certain section of a website or content. Given that most visitors are used to seeing photographs across the web, a carefully designed illustration is more effective. It could be a call to action section or a signup form. Instead of just relying on text or images, be more creative and use a custom illustration for such sections.
Enhance infographics with illustrations
Infographics are great at summarizingcontent and drawing clicks to your website. A good infographic must have some illustrations to attract attention. They also help you compress a lot of information into a small space. When it comes to infographics, the simpler the illustration, the better so don’t overdo it.
All in all, illustrations have become an important part of today’s web design. Look around the web and you will come across more and more companies moving away from traditional photographs to more meaningful and impactfulillustrations.
