Using vector illustrations in designs to deliver your message
Do you ever wish you didn’t use stock photography so much? Recently I’ve found myself trawling through pages of stock images from sites such as Shutterstock, iStock and Fotolia, usually looking for a well-presented young professional smiling to camera. These sites contain some good photography but I’m always worried that the stock approach lacks creativity and uniqueness.
The use of simple vector illustrations can come to your rescue in this situation. Like the ones above they are eye-catching, can be doctored to incorporate your client’s colours and non-specific in terms of race or age. As they are not real people they’re less likely to receive criticisms from your client such as “too smug”, “too smiley” or too whatever. If you client doesn’t like the colour of hair it can easily be changed.
Increasingly, you see the use of a cartoon character, either human or animal, being used to freshen up a website. I would also consider them for HTML emails and direct marketing. Colourful, simple and friendly is the way to go.
These characters can be made easily in Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop. You may find it easier to do an image search and trace over. Or you can use Illustrator’s Live Trace tool.
I noticed that SitePal are using cartoon-style characters for their services, and I can remember that the whole concept of it looked quite fresh and unique. So, I can see where such characters and use of vector illustrations do have their place on even professional websites.
Recently, I’ve found myself getting so much more into illustrator simply because it saves me on the overhead and I’ve managed to work more efficiently there, anyhow. Something about the way Photoshop selects items when you click on them drives me nuts.
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I’ve never been a fan of Photoshop for anything but for editing family pictures.
PEACE
@Andrew, yes, and the MailChimp site has a similar vector character. It can look professional.
@Web Design Miami, thanks they didn’t take me long to do as I used Illustrator’s Live Trace tool to trace some images I found and then played around with them until they looked original in their own right. In Photoshop, with the Move Tool (V) selected, uncheck Auto-Select in the Tools bar, and then it won’t select items when you click on them (but will if you hold down cmd/ctrl).
@Lisek, I’m a fan of Illustrator and Photoshop. These could be created in Photoshop as well with Shape Layers.
@Photoshop Makeovers, agreed, it could be done with posterise in Photoshop but you’d have to change the colours to suit and it may look a bit different by the time you’ve done it that way.
@lanre, yes, one must consider illustrations as well as photography.
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i myself do illustrations, it’s a great fun doing that.
It’s a most simplest and cute way of expressing emotions.
especially in advertisement.
http://www.goodnaturedfruit.co.uk
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@Niedermaier, yes I use Fotolia as well.
@Sarah Hayes, there’s something about the flat colours and simplicity.
@MOin, you’re right. It’s a direct way to convey emotions and works well in ads.
@Media Training, I’ve looked at your Good Natured Fruit website and it looks excellent to me. A really, fresh, simple eye-catching website!
@A dust collecting fool, iStock, Fotolia and Shutterstock sell vector images. There’s loads of very good free vector sites as well.
@Webkinz World, thank you, I couldn’t have put it better myself. I agree vector illustrations tend to stick out more than photography.
I’d like to say and big, big “thank you” to everybody who’s taken time to comment on this post. Really helpful and inspiring. I apologise for the tardiness of my replies, which is down to a spate of being busy and lazy.
Your website is very nicely designed, I have already bookmarked it.
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Dominique, I really don’t know if these can be made in GIMP but I suspect they can be. Vector illustrations are more of an Illustrator thing than a Photoshop thing (although they can be produced in both) and for this reason you may also be able to create them in Xara Xtreme which is an open source application similar to Illustrator. I hope this helps.
It would be a great idea to put together a list of online companies that will do illustrations for websites.
xok, you’re right, sometimes a photograph of a real person just can’t be beaten. There are times when the vector illustrations will work and times when they won’t. Good idea about the list of companies who’ll do vector illustrations for websites - add my name to the top of that list!
Thanks, Hobo.
Hi Jeff, they’re good for humour. Good for breaking up the text of an otherwise boring webpage. Of course, always remember your alt and title tags for your illustrations so that the big G doesn’t ignore the benefit of them.
Hello Great Wall of China, it was Pierre Bézier of Renault in the sixties who used vectors to describe the parametric curves in car manufacture, his work was then adapted into the graphics programs that are widely used today. Not a lot of people know that!
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I recommend using vector illustrations but commission artists to create them or you will litter the media with shoddy artwork. This is already happening and it’s depressing to see when there are millions of really talented illustrators around.
Cosmetic Contacts, they do grab your attention, you’re right!
Respiro Media, they’re a good option to express emotion.
Fritha, sorry to have shocked you. If what I do is in breach of copyright I would be happy to argue my point in court. It depends entirely on what you’re tracing and how you trace it. Most of what I do I doubt the original artist would even recognise their own work. I won’t be wasting my money to commission a illustrator when I can do the same thing easily myself. The millions of talented illustrators around you refer to will be able to make money if they really are talented. But if they are always looking to make money from claiming breach of copyright it suggests that they really aren’t that talented in the first place. Thanks for the comment.
James Wilter