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Spiceworks Illustration Style

An online community for IT Pros, with free tools to help navigate their day

Client

Spiceworks

Services

Branding

Illustration

Marketing

The Objective

Spiceworks’ rebrand in 2017 had helped make much of the brand messaging consistent and clear, but illustration had remained undefined. The design team recoginzed that it was time to clarify what illustration looked like at Spiceworks. Our goal was to champion Spiceworks' core values that spoke of a relatable human experience, and to create something consistent, recognizable, and relevant to IT pros interacting with the brand.

Before the rebrand, a majority of our illustrations used a “heavy-line” approach, but this didn’t always connect with the Marketing Team’s vision
People and icons were the most painful place of inconsistency
Despite the inconsistency, there were still a ton of fun illustrations

Cast A Wide Net

The team divided into three groups. Each was to develop their own rough concept in two or three images. My proposal made heavy use of gradients to create a soft glow. I felt this would really help us connect with our core values of approachability and relevance, as well as give the illustrations a future/tech feeling.

Slight glows could be used to draw the eye in
One of my main goals was to show people in a unique way
The simple shapes are accented by the soft shadows and highlights
The texture gave us a lot of opportunities for interesting effects

Spice It Up

We teamed up with marketing and did some user testing to get an impression on the early read of the various styles. With the user testing in hand a style was decided on.

This direction would focus on a rough and textured style helping us achieve a very human and relatable feeling (two of our other core values), which was also the most popular in testing. Next we began to iterate and riff off of the early illustrations provided. Testing the boundaries and limitations of the style before they were clearly defined. Sometimes even pulling elements from the previous styles and combining them to search for interesting results.

There were many iterations on people, and what was the best way to draw them
One version came about pulling in parts from a completely different ‘notebook’ style
An example of a finalized illustration style for a presentation deck.

A few common traits began to emerge that were original and easy to replicate. Firstly, it was easier to work in vector so the team could stay flexible, but due to the vectors we would need to find new non-destructive organic solutions to roughen edges and add texture. Once those techniques were in place we had a cohesive vision for how to accomplish a style unique to Spiceworks that was true to its core values.

Using the grain texture as shadows and highlights helped give the images a depth that was previously missing
People were begining to find their shape under the new style. Flat colors, with some light grain shadows. This style of person is fun and relatable.

Confident in where the team had landed, the final step was to begin creating systems to replicate the style so that new designers could be on-boarded quickly and future illustrations would continue to stay true to the style.

Assets were developed for the Illustration guide and handbook.

In Conclusion

The team set out to create an easy to replicate style that would allow for consistency across the brand, a style that would touch on the core Spiceworks values of "relatable, accessible, relevant, and human", a style that would speak to the Spiceworks community, and make the marketing and executive teams feel confident in the work they were putting forward.

I believe it is clear this style succeeds on all fronts.

Special thanks to the rest of the team: Matt Kohn(Art Director), Andrew Baron(Copywriter), Sarah Pedregon(Designer), & Ryan Vatzlavick(Designer)

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