My Role

Illustration

My Role

Illustration

Client

Typeform

Client

Typeform

Forms that stand out, illustrations that blend-in

Getting people to participate in surveys can be tricky. Extracting valuable and actionable data —even more so. Typeform simplifies the process and provides the tools and integrations necessary to create engaging forms, better understand audiences, and make informed decisions.

As the design team at Typeform was working on a brand refresh, they saw a crucial gap — the lack of a cohesive illustration art direction.

The existing set didn’t align with the new brand framework, resulting in challenges with scalability and implementation and repetitive use of the same elements throughout the product.

Belen from Typeform reached out to me to join their efforts and help enhance product interactions and marketing campaigns through the strategic use of illustrations. The task at hand was clear — develop a library that seamlessly integrates with the updated design of the platform while offering flexibility for future growth and adaptation.

Looking at the big picture

Brief and art direction

To make sure that the illustrations blend in with the rest of the visual language I dived in exploring the recently updated brand guidelines and existing collateral.

The bold colours and shapes seemed like the perfect company to a toned down illustration style with simple black lines. However it was important to find a way to bridge the two aesthetics and make sure the illustrations have the same playful tone as the rest of the visual language.

Photography and design copyrights © Typeform

Illustrations that fit in

Concept sketches and style exploration

Concept sketches and coloring

When I need to stick to a more minimalistic style, playful characters, abstract shapes and relatable concepts come to the rescue. They balance the clean look of the lines and the lack of texture to create a flexible illustration library that still has a lot of personality and feels unique to the brand.

Concept sketches

Style exploration

Radostina is a great communicator and collaborator, she presented her work effectively in our sessions and made sure to move deadlines along.

She’s really emerged in our way of working, making it very easy to fit her process into ours. Although our needs and our internal team changed a couple times along the way, she remained cool and collected.

Radost’s skills are a good combination of conceptual thinking and technical experience. This made it very easy to create a beautiful illustration set within constraints of web and our UI design. I’d definitely work with her again to expanded our set of illustrations.

— Thomas Schrijer, Design Manager at Typeform

Easy to adapt, easy to implement

Illustrations that fit in

Production of the assets and organisation of the library

Concept sketches and style exploration

Concept sketches and coloring

When it comes to digital products, illustration functions as a tool rather than just a form of art. It serves a specific purpose, requiring effectiveness and a format that is small in size and easy to implement. Considering this as well as the clean lines of the existing brand assets, it was a natural decision to opt for full vector illustrations.

Moreover, in instances where the same assets has to be used across multiple contexts, having illustrations that are easy to adapt becomes essential. This not only saves time and resources but also enables the team to progress swiftly through milestones.

When it comes to digital products, illustration functions as a tool rather than just a form of art. It serves a specific purpose, requiring effectiveness and a format that is small in size and easy to implement. Considering this as well as the clean lines of the existing brand assets, it was a natural decision to opt for full vector illustrations.

Moreover, in instances where the same assets has to be used across multiple contexts, having illustrations that are easy to adapt becomes essential. This not only saves time and resources but also enables the team to progress swiftly through milestones.

Original enterprise illustration

Adapted for in-product use

Badge for the enterprise plan

Mix & match

For some of the illustrations I added a bundle of elements that can be used as replacement to form a different narrative.

The good thing about such assets is that there is not much to break in terms of composition. Even people with less design experience can use the elements similarly to a puzzle and adapt the illustration to fit a specific use case.

Guideline and hand off

A successful illustration library is always followed by seamless implementation. To make the process easier for the design team and make sure that the consistency will remain, I worked on a comprehensive guideline. It starts with a short intro to the building blocks of the illustration library and goes on in a bit more detail about the best practices with illustrated examples.