Creating an illustration style guideline
The secret to begin that no-one tells you
If you’ve created illustration style guidelines before or are in process of doing the same, you might have realized one thing for sure — Internet isn’t the best place to rely upon when you’re stuck with ‘how to begin with the task’.
Do your research they say, find your style they say, but no one tells — What next? While I was in process of developing a style, I lost count of articles I read which had nearly same things to say: 1) Understand the requirement 2) Look for inspiration 3) Create your style. However, most of us often find ourselves stuck somewhere between pt. 2 & 3 with just one question — How to begin.
Whether you look up for stories by industry experts on medium or try finding elsewhere online, you might end up failing to find anything that will guide you what’s next. So, after my failed attempts at finding the solution online and learning it by jumping into the process that leads to something I’m proud of, here’s my story and answer to the question — How to begin with creating your style.
So, assuming that by now you would have ‘understood the requirements’ fully and have looked upon Pinterest, Behance, Dribble, etc for ‘inspiration’ and have created a decent collection of the illustrations you like, here’s how to take it forward.
Classify — Try breaking down the illustration styles you prefer based on parameters like whether it is line type or fill type, monochrome or gradient fill. For your sake, I’m listing the classification I began with which I hope might become your starting point too.
Now, the list above is nowhere near to being ‘complete’ in itself, but frankly, it doesn’t need to be. It is meant to get you something to begin with. You can sure refer this or make one for your own. Apart from these, try defining as many constraints as you can. (Some people suggest to begin free and start defining constraint as you move on, however, I feel starting without constraints isn’t an easy way to begin.
So whenever I’m stuck, I try to define more constraints and let go the restricting ones as I move on) The constraints could be anything like the main character would always look sideways or illustrations will have animals personified as humans or blue colour always represents safety (Uber follows that). If you don’t know what constraints to choose, you can go back to your inspiration folder and start analyzing the ones you like the most. If you do it right, you’ll find enough to begin.
Once you’re there, start drawing the basic requirement and try to meet all the constraints you’ve set for yourself. Did you meet the intended result? Yes — Reward yourself a bar of chocolate but remember, it’s just the first step. No — Don’t worry, try relaxing one or two constraints and see if you’re nearer to where you wanted to be. If you’re not, try again and remember, it’s just the first step.
So, after much hustle, if you succeed in creating a style (it doesn’t have to be mature at this stage, just something to begin with), try creating other illustrations which are in a way different using the same set of constraints. For eg, if you drew a standing man, now try making one who’s riding a bicycle or a scene where more than one person is involved and then a scene with no person at all.
This could be a stress test for your style and you might find yourself stuck in some cases following the existing set of constraints. Modify them such that they cover most of the illustration types you might need for the requirement. Do not act rigidly to modify the initial style. This process will evolve your style and by the end, you might meet the one which perfectly matches your requirement.
Whatever I’ve written in the paragraph above is the essence of nearly one month of efforts. So if you do not see immediate development, it’s completely fine. Creating an illustration style isn’t easy.
While writing this article, even I’m in the hustle to develop my own style even further. I might update the collection on Behance, so if you’re interested do-follow. Also, let me know how you went about creating your style in comments.
Have a great day :)
UPDATE: The illustration style displayed in this article is discontinued. If you’re interested, read the full story here:
