With attention spans getting shorter, brands need strong visuals to stand out. Custom illustrations help grab attention, communicate messages quickly, and create a unique brand identity. Unlike generic stock images, they are designed specifically for your brand, making your content more engaging and recognizable. Whether it’s for logos, social media, packaging, or marketing materials, custom illustrations give your brand a distinct and memorable appeal
Why You Need Custom Illustrations for Your Brand
The average human attention span is only about 8.25 seconds. This is significantly down from the average 12-second attention span just a couple of decades ago. This makes it more important than ever to have engaging ways to quickly communicate your message with your audience. For many brands, that answer is custom illustrations.
Images are the first thing that draws users’ eyes to a screen. This is why custom illustrations are so important to brands and their ability to spread online awareness. In fact, research shows that articles with images get 94% more views than those without them, and infographics are 30x more likely to be read compared to pure text.
There are several different uses a brand can have for custom illustrations. They can use these illustrations for infographics, blog illustrations, social media, storybooks, mascots, branding, manuals, and much more. The use of custom illustrations is becoming more and more common for brands every day.
The Benefits of Custom Illustrations for Brands
Standing Out from the Competition
Think of popular brands like Spotify or Nike. When you hear their names, one of the first things that probably pops into your mind is the image associated with the brand, whether that’s the green circle with the three sound waves or the famous orange swoosh.
These are custom illustrations that were created to help those brands stand out. Consistent illustrations and color choices also help further your audience’s familiarity with your brand.
Increasing Engagement
Imagine you’re scrolling through social media and come across two posts about the same topic—one is just plain text, and the other includes a colorful illustration that fits in with the theme of the overall brand. Which one are you more likely to stop and look at?
The answer is likely the version with the illustration. Online users love visual content, and this translates into content engagement as well. Data shows that adding visual content to a post increases the likelihood of it being shared by 40%. As mentioned earlier, this doesn’t only apply to social media. Users are much more likely to stop and read online articles if they have accompanying illustrations.
Alternative Ways of Communication
There are other ways to communicate besides using words. Custom illustrations can also be used to tell stories. They can be designed to communicate a range of different emotions that connect with the audience.
Think of it from the standpoint of a children’s storybook. Even without the words at the bottom of the page, the illustrations are able to communicate a lot of the story. The same can be done with custom illustrations and branding.
Breaking Up Text
One of the reasons that custom illustrations work so well with blogs and articles is that they help break up large blocks of text. Infographics are another form of custom illustrations that are good at being used for this purpose. Infographics are a customizable way to restructure facts or key points in a more visually appealing way. This increases the likelihood that these points get read by the audience.
Improving Your Branding
Custom illustrations can be used for all different parts of your branding. It may include custom typography, merch illustrations, product illustrations, illustrated manuals, mascots, video asset creations, and more.
Businesses in many industries use these illustrations, whether it’s an illustrated menu for a restaurant, engaging infographics for a tech company, or character designs for a gaming brand. Custom artwork adds a unique, personal touch that sets your brand apart. These illustrations help create a unique identity, making your brand more recognizable and engaging. Whether for packaging, marketing materials, or digital content, they add a personal touch that sets your brand apart.
Types of Custom Illustrations
There are a variety of types of custom illustrations you can have done for you. Some of the most common custom illustration styles are geometric, flat, line art, realistic, isometric, and hand drawn.
Geometric Illustrations
Geometric illustrations are created using geometric shapes like triangles, circles, and squares. These shapes are combined to form more complex pictures. These pictures can represent objects, scenes, or abstract concepts. Geometric illustrations have a more modern appeal to them compared to other custom illustration types. They are a popular choice for branding and digital design.
Flat Illustrations
Flat illustrations are another type of modern illustration style. As the name suggests, these illustrations are characterized by their two-dimensional appearance. They don’t have a lot of depth and dimension. These illustrations are often made up of solid colors and clean lines. They are easy to incorporate into different types of digital platforms like websites and mobile apps. This design style is known to be simple and clear. This makes it a great style choice for communicating straightforward messages.
Line Art Illustrations
Line art illustrations focus primarily on lines to create the composition. However, they are not always necessarily simple. These illustrations can range from simple to intricate, depending on the complexity of the design. This style is usually used to give off a minimalist and modern aesthetic. It is a style you may commonly see used in logos, icons, and graphic designs where simplicity is the goal.
Realistic Illustrations
Realistic illustrations are exactly what they sound like—realistic. The goal of this style of custom illustration is to accurately depict subjects in a lifelike manner. These illustrations require a higher level of detail than the previously mentioned style. They also require the illustrator to have the ability to capture the subtleties of texture, lighting, and color. Realistic illustrations can be used in many different ways. They are great for prototypes, commercial advertising, and any uses where the goal is to create a convincing and immersive visual experience.
Isometric Illustrations
Isometric illustrations are created using isometric projection. All of the illustrations are drawn at 120 degrees to each other. This way, artists can create 3D designs in a 2D plane. This technique gives the illusion of depth without using perspective and creates a unique, three-dimensional appearance. Isometric illustrations are popular in architectural and technical drawings. They are growing in popularity for use in other areas as well.
Hand-Drawn Illustrations
Hand-drawn illustrations have a very creative feel to them. They are created manually using traditional media like pencils, ink, or watercolors. These illustrations usually have both a personal and organic feel. These illustrations might include features like visible brushstrokes or pencil marks that add character to the artwork. Hand-drawn illustrations are great at creating a sense of authenticity. This makes it a great custom illustration style for projects where a human touch is desired. For example, a children’s book or personal branding.
Ways You Can Apply Custom Illustrations to Your Brand
With so many different styles and types of custom illustrations, the possibilities are endless. Here are a few great ways you can use custom illustrations to support your brand:
Branding Elements
Branding elements can be anything from logos to icons. These are the images that are most likely associated with the brand when someone hears the name. These elements should be designed to reflect the values of your brand and its personality. Some brands may also have other elements created for them, such as avatars or mascots. Custom illustrators design these characters to be a memorable representation of your brand across different platforms. For example, when you hear about Kool-Aid, one of the first images that comes to mind is likely their mascot, the Kool-Aid Man.
Digital Presence
Most successful brands have a strong digital presence. Custom illustrations can help build this strong presence. As mentioned above, custom illustrations are great for creating compelling social media designs that increase engagement with your brand. Custom illustrations can also be great for other forms of your digital presence as well. For example, if you have an email newsletter, adding custom illustrations to these newsletters can help make the content more memorable and engaging.
Packaging and Print Materials
If your brand has any physical merchandise, custom illustrations can be particularly helpful. Custom illustrations can be used to create more appealing packaging for your products that reflect your brand. It can also be used to help you come up with prototypes or accompanying print materials, such as manuals or brochures.
Educational Content
Custom illustrations don’t always have to be used for the public. Some of the best uses for custom illustrations are for in-house educational content. For example, you can have custom illustrations done for tutorials or how-to-guides for your employees. This can help better explain the processes in each step while still matching the themes of your brands. You also could have custom illustrations done for parts of your website, such as a page about your brand’s history or a visual to communicate your brand’s values.
Advertisements
Not all custom illustrations have been used directly on your website or social media channels. Another great use for custom illustrations is creating ad banners and posters. The banners may be found on other websites and draw the attention of visitors, redirecting them back to your website. These illustrations can help more viewers become interested and turn into customers or clients.
Website With Custom Illustration Services
Superside has worked with hundreds of brands on their custom illustration projects. They’ve worked with brands like Reddit, Figma, Shopify, Google, Amazon, and more. These services include storyboarding, iconography, infographic design, custom marketing material, character design, and more.
Design Pickle offers custom illustration services with 100% original artwork created every time. This includes cartoon, semi-realistic, and realistic designs. These designs use vector and raster-based mediums. Clients are matched with professional illustrators to take on their custom illustration projects. Unlimited revisions are allowed on each project after a final draft has been completed.
Fiverr offers on-demand custom illustrations for all types of projects. Users can explore the services their freelancers are offering and choose a person whose offerings work best for them. There are no in-house teams. However, clients can place different orders for every design project, depending on which freelancer’s offering they believe is the best fit for the project they are trying to complete. These projects may include sketches, line art, illustrations for child audiences, realistic illustrations, cartoon illustrations, and more.
Flocksy delivers unlimited custom illustrations as part of its all-in-one creative platform. Their service includes a wide range of illustration types, including avatars and characters, social media graphics, product illustrations, infographics, and the list goes on. Flocksy’s team consists of pre-vetted, highly talented designers and artists who can create compelling custom illustrations with fast turnaround times and unlimited revisions. All artwork is 100% original and can be done in a variety of different styles.
Final Thoughts
Custom illustrations are way more impactful than common stock photos. They help bring your brand to life. They grab attention, tell stories, and make your content more interesting to your audience.
There are several ways you can incorporate custom illustrations into your brand to help you stand out from your competition. Check out Flocksy’s custom illustration services and past work to see the positive impact it could have on your brand.