Creating Illustrations That Inspire People
By Meju Lawrence, the Lead Illustrator at Portify.
Illustrations have the potential to take your websites to a whole other dimension especially when it is applied right. It is an arsenal essentially used to deliver a message in surreal, abstract, or figurative ways leaving a lasting impression on the visitors.
Portraying abstract ideas or something that speaks to the personality of a person or brand to life with lines and colors has a totally different feel to it. This connects wholly with viewers engaging with the website. The approach for its creation will differ for different situations but the goal remains the same.
I started out reading all of the notes to understand the client’s reason for a website and I penned down the first things that came to mind to keep a vocabulary. For the client, these words and descriptions were particular to his personal journey of two disciplines that were not particularly linked in any way — a graduate of Industrial and Production Engineering with cognate experience in Development Finance and Engineering management — as well as his love of experiencing new places and cultures.
Right after making my vocabulary and doing a bit of research, I took some time out of the work. This is necessary for me to let things connect before getting on with the initial sketches. At this point, I had an abstract idea that I wanted to bring to life on the screen, the story of a person carving his blueprint and exploring uncharted spaces. This grand idea determined the trajectory of my initial sketches.
The sketching phase is quite interesting because it could go a million ways and this is also what makes it intense for some. I like to think of sketching as thinking with paper, leaving traces of your thoughts with every stroke of the pen. If you spend just enough time on it, you will have something to pick up from.
The next phase was the creation of my mood board to refine my sketches. This involved references and color choices to help visualize the idea.
Throughout the process of sketching and coloring, I was intentional about making an attention-grabbing illustration. An art piece that sticks in the memory of everyone that comes across the site. The first point of contact.
Click here to see more of my work.
