This week in class a new feature/ element was covered that could be used within different UI/UX design systems. We covered how the effect and use of Illustrations within digital design can be seen.
To begin, I never really considered using any forms of illustration in my current project as I don't really know how I could include them with a strong enough link to my brand and what it stands for.
What I learned about digital illustrations within UI/UX is that a lot of used art works are very ‘Flat’ and consist of just a few different colours. I learned that they are created this way as it gives the brand and or designer can alter and resize illustrations without losing detail, depending on what it is for or not
I also learned that there are many different ‘genres’ to illustrations and what they are designed for. For example, Mascots. A mascot is designed in a way to become the ‘face’ of the brand, to also become ‘iconic’ first and foremost. Examples given were, Duolingo Bird, the Michelin man, and Mail chimp.
I decided to branch off and look at my own examples of mascots that are used within UI/UX and what came to mind are the M&M characters to represent the company. The designer created these characters not only to make the characters become more interactive to the target audience but also looked at it as iconic. The designer just slapped on arms, legs, and a face onto what the Product is.
Personalized Gifts, Favors and More | M&M'S
What I learned from this research aswell is that each mascot has their very own personality which was chosen based on what colour the character is. What I mean by this is that yellow is an optimistic character and red is seen as temperamental. This gives the brand to choose each character to advertised depending on what they are representing.
There are many other themes of digital Illustration that can be used by other companies to represent the brand, such as:
Thematic
Diagramtic
Iconic
Data Visualisation
Hand drawing
Vectors
Another form of illustration within design I decided to look into was the Colonel Sanders character that represents KFC. Based on the real life person, this logo was created to represent the brand and becoming Iconic, what I mean by this is that the logo is instantly recognisable by just about anyone.
Iconic illustrations is just about what every brand and company aim to achieve, as popular and recognisable as the Starbucks logo, Ronald McDonald, etc. As complex as the logo may see the company, KFC, uses a mix of their logo and wordmarks when advertising their products, both still becoming ‘Iconic’
I also learned that KFC includes illustrated icons when representing their products, in this example they use a flame icon to let the customers know that this product is spicy.