Custom illustrations offer a unique form of brand storytelling that can:
Add context to your website copy, helping visitors understand your offer at a glance.
Help your potential customers form an emotional connection with your content.
Bring your business messaging to life, making a bolder statement about who you are and how you work.
Make your brand more memorable and trustworthy.
Set you apart from competitors who might be trying to achieve all the above with stock imagery.
Website Illustration Case Study: Six Degrees Strategy
I was approached by Rachel, founder of Six Degrees Strategy, to help her bring her website to life through illustrations.
Rachel recently launched her management coaching and operational strategy consultancy and she wanted illustrations that would elevate her new website and help tell the story of how she supports entrepreneurs to navigate growth and set themselves up for success.
The brief: illustrations that help explain the ‘how’
Rachel had already invested in some excellent brand photography, which did a great job of showing who she is, conveying her warmth and openness. However, she felt she could do more to communicate how she could support her clients on their business journey.
Some of the key points she wanted to convey included:
Emphasising growth over overwhelm: communicating the vision of how a client will gain clarity once they’ve worked together.
Communicating the idea of growing through collaboration: navigating the challenges of entrepreneurship together, and identifying a path forward.
Supporting and building on the narrative provided by the website copy, and working in harmony with the existing brand assets.
Ultimately, the illustrations needed to feel warm, inviting, and provide a point of difference.
Design concept: exploring business adventures together
The words ‘Journey’, ‘Exploring’ and ‘Together’ came through strongly from Rachel’s brief, so I developed the illustration concepts around the idea of Rachel and a client exploring business adventures together and reaching new heights. The branding includes some references to ‘lightbulb moments’ so I wanted to include some subtle references to this also.
Illustration Design Process: Sketches to Final Assets
As always, my process started with setting a timer for 10 minutes, grabbing a pen and paper, and writing down as many ideas as I could think of.
With some options under my belt, I moved on to sketching out quick thumbnails to see how those ideas could be developed visually. This process quickly revealed which ideas are non-starters, and the ones where I found myself wanting to add keep going and add more detail.
Thumbnail sketches
Thumbnail sketches for illustration concepts
ROUGH sketches FOR THE CLIENT TO REVIEW
Rough sketches of illustration concepts
The client came back to say she wanted to go ahead with all three concepts. The next step was to work these up into more polished, colour illustrations, using the brand colour palette.
As these illustrations would be used on the website, I shared a few variations of colour combinations so that Rachel’s web designer could check how they would look in situ on the website, then I could refine accordingly.
FINAL ILLUSTRATIONS
Shining a light to gain clarity: the client is holding the torch, while Rachel helps them see where to point it.
Mapping a way forward together - a simple map showing a fictional town where geographical landmarks are replaced with some of the highs and lows of an entrepreneur’s journey.
Taking your idea to new heights: Rachel and her client are navigating their way through the skies in a hot air balloon, where the bag is replaced by a lightbulb.
Website illustrations in context
The images below show the illustrations in context on the Six Degrees Strategy website.
Client feedback
“As someone who isn't naturally a visual thinker, I worried that I didn't give a very specific brief, but Danielle was phenomenal at translating the vague description of feelings that I gave her into a really strong visual narrative.
The use of illustration on my website feels really unique compared to other sites and gives me a real sense of pride to see myself visualised in such a fun way.”