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Written by : Sanford Mammo |
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illustrations and icons can really be a way to break that information up and bring a lot more energy and positivity into the work hi creatives and welcome back to agency academy my name is marlin and here on the channel we talk about how to build a business that works for you so you have more freedom to create and do the things that you love and today we're going to talk about one of my favorite topics which is using illustration for branding i've been running my branding studio for about six years now and illustration is one of the things that has always been one of my biggest passions because it just brings so much personality and just like a point of difference to your work we're going to talk about three different ways to use illustration for branding and along the way i'm going to be sharing a couple different projects with you to sort of showcase what i mean and give you some inspiration so the very first one is using illustration for sort of icons and details in a brand that bring a lot more personality and helps you stand out from your competitors and this is really good when you have lots of information to convey maybe it's a brand that is very information heavy or it's a complex topic and illustrations and icons can really be a way to break that information up and bring a lot more energy and positivity into the work these illustrations do not have to be complicated which is why it's such a great way to start incorporating illustrations into your branding one example where we did this in a super simple way was with the project social foodies this is a vegan marketing agency so marketing for vegan food brands and basically the idea here is to bring in a little bit of that energy that you have in the food brands into the marketing agency so we illustrated these little icons that look like different ingredients as a way to showcase their different selling points and their quirky personality another example is an annual review that we actually just released with a charity so this is something where they have compiled information from a whole year's worth of really hard work so we decided to create this really beautiful layout where you have each letter is hand drawn and has illustrations that are matching the content of each section so it's a way to help people find what they need without it feeling so corporate or overwhelming another way to use illustration for your branding projects is to really make it the star of the show and to really make sure that the illustration is coming front and center of the design project and this can be a really fun challenge to make sure that you're conveying all of these different complex ideas and topics and personality of the brand in the illustrations and i like to do this for companies where photography is really difficult to find so for example i worked with a company that worked with the gut microbiome so basically like your gut health and as you can probably imagine it's not that nice to put pictures of people having problems with their stomachs or different bacteria so instead of doing that we created these different sets of illustrations with different levels of complexity so here we're actually both using the illustrations as hero images and as the way to guide the viewer through the different website pages and different assets that they have like presentations for example so this is incorporating both those hero images and the sort of icon style that we had before the third way i want to talk about is packaging and packaging it can be so much fun because a lot of the products are seasonal or maybe got different flavors where you can play with one concept in different styles different ingredients being illustrated so one example is we did a drink where we have designs that are reflecting the flavors so one is lemon and lime and one is strawberry and so this could be one way of doing it of course you can also do it a lot more subtle so when you're using illustration to kind of highlight a little bit of the finesse of the ingredients or just sort of communicating what the content of the product is without having to just spell it out but illustration is such a great way to get your products seen and visible on the shelf especially if illustration is not something that is used a lot in that food industry or product industry that you're in then illustration can really be something that makes people choose the product over another one on the shelf since we talk about packaging i can also throw in that this strategy can be used for any sort of print like if you're having a conference and you're having a roll-up banner that can be a great opportunity to use illustration to be visible from really far and when let's say a photo might be really complex or detailed that could be difficult to kind of gauge what's going on in the picture from afar in illustration you can really control the level of detail and the content and the layout exactly as you like it so it can also be really good for printing materials when you have any sort of promotional campaign or conference for example and lastly i have a bit of a bonus one which is to create branded sections on a website so for example having blog posts all have their own custom illustrated thumbnail and this is something that i always get so excited when i see from different websites because it really shows that instead of just picking like a stock photo that you thought was semi-relevant to the post you have someone who have created this unique piece of illustration that reflects the content and i think this is one where if your client has a bigger budget and they're ready to invest in illustration it can really create this cohesive beautiful impact on their website so this was a bit of a quick inspiration video and i love the topic of illustration in general so if you want a video that's a little bit more in-depth maybe showcasing how i create illustrations in procreate or in illustrator or just like the process of creating an illustration from talking to the client to concepting approval and exporting everything i'd love to do a video like that so just let me know in the comments if you like this video i would love if you like it or subscribe to the channel it really helps us and it of course is really fun for us to see that people are enjoying the content and i really hope you enjoyed it and super good luck with your projects see you next time you
Thanks for your comment Timothy Milius, have a nice day.
- Sanford Mammo, Staff Member
today i'm going to talk to you about some of the different types of clients that hire illustrators and some of the pros and cons that go along with each of them there are so so many opportunities for an illustrator these days we tend to think of the big three as being editorial publishing and advertising but that doesn't really scratch the surface of all the possibilities that are out there i'm regularly surprised by the range of different requests we get you can have a very interesting and varied career as an illustrator if you keep an open mind and take opportunities where you can you never know what project will lead to where or what will come from a particular project that you're working on you might have a particular image in your mind of what you'll be working on as an illustrator maybe you imagine yourself working on children's books or editorial work but if you only do one of those things for the whole of your career you'll get bored and you'll struggle financially unless you happen to have a big break with a book i am a firm believer that you should take as many opportunities as you can when you're a new illustrator because any one of them could lead you down a completely unexpected and rewarding path you don't know until you try there are a couple of caveats to that you shouldn't work on projects where the client is taking advantage of you and for the most part the projects you do work on won't lead to anything amazing but working on a variety of projects in a variety of different areas will give you a varied and interesting portfolio that will appeal to more different kinds of clients which in turn will lead to more opportunities i've got a list of about 25 different areas that an illustrator could work on in this video not all of them will apply to everyone but even if you can work on projects in six or seven of these different areas you'll never be bored you'll have a really interesting mix of long and short projects some well paid some not so much your work will be seen in all different places and by all different kinds of people there will be some projects you do just for the money but there'll also be projects that you can be incredibly proud of i'll get into the list now if you haven't subscribed yet please do and feel free to add any more areas you can think of to the comments this is not a complete list but i'm guessing there will be some things in here that you haven't considered before editorial magazines and newspapers this is a tried and tested path into the illustration world there's a regular demand for illustrators in magazines and newspapers it's where a lot of illustrators get their first jobs these clients tend to be more willing to take a chance on newer artists because the fees are relatively low and there's a quick turnover for weekly or monthly magazines there's a massive range in magazines too you can go from small local publications to international big names like the new york times or time magazine even in editorial you usually have to work your way up the ladder from the low paying magazines to the big names it might be relatively easy to get into some magazines but you might not get a shot at the big names until you've got a few years of experience under your belt editorial is a good route into illustration but you will likely work for magazines for the whole of your career within magazines there's a whole range of subjects too there are magazines and blogs for just about any subject you can think of so although magazines will generally be at the lower paying end of clients you should make every effort to get into editorial illustration because there's regular interesting work there publishing publishing also covers a lot you've got your kids books comic books educational books which usually have their own publishers there's illustrated books for adults like cookbooks for example then you've got book covers which is like a whole world of its own there's a massive range in fees in publishing and book covers uh depending on the publisher a book cover in the uk might range between 600 pounds to 2000 pounds in the us a bit higher like fifteen hundred dollars to four thousand dollars for a full wrap around cover educational books don't tend to pay all that well so they work with a lot of newer illustrators if you go into a book shop and look around all the illustrated books you can find just make a note of all the publishers and anything that are appropriate for your work get in touch book projects are long mostly underpaid for the amount of work you have to deliver it's hard work but very rewarding when you see the final product but covers are a staple part of an illustration career i think just like editorial you might be working on book covers regularly for the whole of your career if you're lucky advertising working with advertising agencies is really a gateway to working with all different kinds of clients that want to advertise their services or products could be a mobile phone company could be a vodka brand could be food could be a car it tends to be the bigger more famous brands that work with advertising agencies your big recognizable names these are the companies that can afford to work with an advertising agency which i'm guessing is quite expensive that means there's bigger budgets available for illustration too it's great working in advertising because you generally speaking get paid a lot more for your work and you get to add the world's best brands to your client list projects can be long or short sometimes very short sometimes the actual amount of work is relatively small but if the illustration is going to be used worldwide the license fee is very large and that's a great position to be in with advertising your work could appear on out of home adverts like billboards posters in airports digital displays in the subway and that kind of thing or it could be on tv or in the cinema or even just online ads there's lots of more unusual applications too like the size of buses or taxis an advertising campaign can run for a few days up to several years a lot of clients work with advertising agencies that's the same with marketing agencies or more general design agencies too a lot of the other things i'm going to list next might work through an advertising agency or they might not for example a sports brand might work on a campaign through an advertising agency or they might have an in-house agency that can do it without the aid of an advertising agency they might do both i've worked on projects with nike directly with ike but i've also worked on projects with nike via an advertising agency marketing agencies operate in much the same way as do general design agencies a general design agency might work on some of the more local campaigns a big brand might do let's say there's a brand sponsoring a regional music festival they might need design work doing for the website and flyers and posters print adverts in magazines that's probably not going to be an exciting enough project for a big advertising agency to take on but a general design agency would take that on and deliver lots of different bits
Thanks wosserloazomsT your participation is very much appreciated
- Sanford Mammo
About the author
I've studied molecular engineering at Binghamton University, State University of New York in Vestal and I am an expert in archaeology of china. I usually feel quixotic. My previous job was operating engineers I held this position for 11 years, I love talking about larping and cabaret. Huge fan of Jim Nabors I practice flag football and collect police memorabilia.
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