Inclusive illustration system

Interlocking gears with a drawing compass

Overview

Introduction

Making in Illustration style keeping 'Inclusivity' as a central requirement.

Context

Background

This project started as a mission to create an 'inclusive' illustration style following the BLM movement in 2020

Hands of different skin tones and a prosthetic arm meeting in the centre

Project history

In June 2020, the entire world came together in the midst of an ongoing pandemic, to support BLM movement. Discussions and meaningful debates were taking place all over internet & organizations were doing structural changes to promote diversity. That was the time when I realized that idea of inclusivity doesn't lies in running away from the diversity but embracing it. Before that, I had developed an illustration style where I didn't give any character skin color, body type or cultural identity in order to make them inclusive but I was WRONG.

So, I started this project in order to fix the mistake I shouldn't have made in the first place.

Earlier style: a cyclist drawn with orange shirt, grey trousers and no outline

Earlier style: the same cyclist with a thin line drawing the bicycle

Task

The task was to develop an illustrations style which should be communicative, fresh, unique and also inclusive.

Process

Approach

At initial stages, I tried experimenting with the existing style to incorporate details of diversity. However, that wasn't a success and with every change, the style would move farther from the initial. Thus, after a point, I lifted all self-imposed restrictions to keep it in line of existing style, experimented with borders, strokes and color-palette.

Challenges

Working with color was although very refreshing, it also came it with its own set of challenges. I had to fix a color palette suiting our theme and that took a while.

Expanded colour palette of muted and saturated shades across the spectrum

Process

Upon fixing the palette, plating with strokes and border types, I finally began testing my style. After much deliberation, I landed on something which worked well on both larger and smaller screens and met our expectations.

Cyclist redrawn with textured brush lines

Cyclist with a darker skin tone and textured brush strokes

Gymnast mid-leap in the textured brush style

Outcome

Final design

Hero illustration for about.uni.xyz: diverse people building, drawing and working together — Image for hero section for about.uni.xyz

Person reaching to plug a cable into a server

Magnifying glass over a map with a ladder and reaction icons

Castle in the clouds rising from a magic lamp

Typewriter with speech bubbles and flying pages

Globe circled by a dotted flight path with location pins

Calendar with a circled date and a crossed-out date

Learnings

This project was full of learnings in practically every domain but most importantly, I learnt to overcome the escapist approach for dealing with problems. The idea of running away from issues isn't a best approach and I learnt it the hard way.

Feedback

The feedback I received for this style was mostly positive and much better as compared to my previous attempt at creating an illustration style. If you haven't read that, you can find that here:

Illustration system