How can illustrations help a startup’s branding

Gabriela Gurgui
brandenstein
Published in
3 min readSep 3, 2020

Illustrations are visual representations of one or more complex ideas. When we are referring to Web Design, their main purpose is to create the best experience for your customers when interacting with your website/app.

Express your Brand Personality

A brand personality is something to which the consumer can relate to; an effective brand has a consistent set of traits that a specific consumer group enjoys. With that said, Illustrations build the bridge between your product and customers, making them become loyal to you.

1. Translates your brand messaging

Think of illustrations as a translation of your web content. Illustrations tell the story and help your customers understand the messaging faster.

  • Helps build rapport — Illustrations build trust in customers by expressing emotions or problems that they go through a lot faster than the text does.
  • Bring your brand to life — They make your brand feel alive by giving your website a human touch instead of a rigid and outdated one.
  • Embody the brand’s values — Illustrations are created based on a strategy, like any other design implementation. They reflect the human values that the brand believes in.

2. Jump out of the crowd

It’s essential to be ahead of your competitors, that’s why you have to prove that your future company is different through what you want to communicate to your target audience.

  • Show professionalism — Some big brands decided to bring a mascot on the market to engage easier with their consumers (M&M’s, Duolingo, Mailchimp).
  • Reflect the founder’s personality — Illustrations inspire confidence for the customers by showing what kind of personality you have as a founder.
  • Bring originality — This way, you show to customers that your startup is innovative and open to creative ideas.

3. Show empathy to your customers

People only buy if the product is solving their real-life problems. Showing empathy for your customers will let them know that you care about their pain points.

  • Empowers the message written — An illustration highlights the website message and makes it feel more credible.
  • Reflect reality — Like any other design product, Illustrations are created based on the customer’s needs.
  • Make you feel included — Illustrations get together more kinds of people who have the same problems and causes.

4. Bring a positive state of mind

Many times when we choose the product with the most appealing package off the shelf. Why is that? Because they make us feel good about our decisions.

  • Inspire high quality — Companies desire to include illustrations on their web platforms since they found out that quality products should be good-looking too.
  • Make you feel calm — Headspace is a well-known meditation app that decided to display colorful illustrations.
  • Bring confidence — Costumers feel more confident choosing your product if the website is clean and attractive than others.

Lastly,

Illustrations are a big trend in web design from the past recent years because the whole brand looks more consistent. Some big brands such as Slack, Notion, Airbnb, or Headspace included them on their websites.

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