Art has been a powerful medium to tell stories for centuries, and the foray of illustration in the digital world has opened up new avenues for visual storytelling.
Many big companies like Google, Airbnb etc. have understood how much power digital illustrations hold and embraced them as a core part of their design strategy. Also, UI UX design companies are catching on to the power of illustration & art in the digital world. Before we understand why digital illustration is so necessary, let’s actually first understand what digital illustrations are.
What is Digital Illustration?
Digital art or digital illustration is an art form that incorporates the style of conventional art tools like pencils, brushes, and oil pastels into technology to create mesmerizing art.
Digital art offers a lot of flexibility and space for experimentation because the platform itself is so flexible. This makes digital illustration an extremely lucrative and popular medium.
Another reason why UI UX companies would embrace digital illustration is to drive user engagement.
Digital Illustration or Digital Art falls under the broad term of new media art, it is an art form that uses digital technology during the creative process.
This involves artwork done digitally, or images and artwork that is created through conventional methods and finished up in the final stages using digital software.
The Power of Illustrations
Illustrations are not merely a trend, they can become extremely important tools to convey complex chunks of information. They are a visual representation of thoughts, ideas and processes. By using illustrations you can help your audience understand visual info quicker.
Illustrations are much more powerful than text when it comes to understanding advanced information.
They also make it easier for people to retain information and recall it later. By associating an idea to an image, our brain creates a connection to that thought and idea.
Finally, illustrations are essential in creating brand identity that helps your brand stand out in a crowd, this is now coming to mainstream UI UX companies’ knowledge.
This much is clear, design, when strategic and purposeful, can play a vital role in telling your brand’s story. Art can catch the attention of users, keep them engaged and stay in their memory.
It is a misconception that illustrations are merely important for beautification. Illustrations are Design in itself. They can magically bring together beautification along with clarity of concepts.
Imaginative illustrations can become a powerful tool to convey your message by bringing absolutely any idea to life, whether that be a floating moon, dogs in astronaut helmets or even talking frogs.
Illustrations can also be highly technical as well. They can contain depths of complexity but they should overall have a simple message. Like any other design, even illustrations undergo layers and layers of stages, from the rough sketches to vector outlines, to colors to depth and composition.
With a little creativity, color and imagination, you can create compelling illustrations that can change a website’s identity.
Now that we’ve understood how important digital art is, let’s understand the creation process of digital illustrations.
There are a wide number of tools, both hardware and software that can assist designers & UI UX companies in creating digital illustrations.
Hardware
The hardware component is an essential element required for digital illustration.
Some hardware tools that are useful in the creation of digital illustration include, graphics tablets, digitiser pen tablets, graphic pads, monitor tablets etc.
These allow users to draw with their hands using a stylus which is a pen like tool.
Software
Finding the right software is crucial for digital illustration for UI UX design companies for better workflow amongst employees. Here are some of the most popular softwares available for digital illustration right now.
- Adobe Illustrator
- Procreate
- Affinity Designer
- Inkscape
- Adobe Photoshop CC
- Autodesk Sketchbook
- Corel Painter
- Adobe Fresco
- Krita
- Clip Studio Paint Pro
Experiment and find the right software that works for you.
Conclusion
Today we can spot illustrations everywhere, from website banners, to about sections. Designers also use animations to bring their website or app to life. The animations are usually done using animated GIFs. A customized icon with SVG animation is now a trend in UI interaction. The delicate use of animation in illustration just gives the site that extra dash of awesomeness for that memorable experience. There are different Illustration and icon styles used in websites and mobile applications, more leaned towards flat design. Few common styles include line drawings, filled colour, hand drawn, low poly, Geometric, isometric and 3D.
Therefore we can understand that illustrations have the power to influence us on a large scale. Creating a definite illustration isn’t a straightforward task but it has tremendous potential. Well-designed illustrations can showcase your product expertise and enhance the value of your brand.
Digital illustrations have been one of the foremost design trends in recent years and they are definitely here to stay. With UI UX design companies catching up with such trends, digital illustrations are here to stay.
Audiences are becoming more and more discerning about what they want to see and experience when they interact with an app or a website and illustrations can definitely enhance this experience.
If you are not using illustrations already, it’s time to jump onto the bandwagon!
