7 reasons an illustrator can give your website a fabulous advantage

You do not have to strive for uniqueness. What you should think about is whether or not the illustration matches with your brand and brand's voice.

Unique is already there, you just have to reinforce what your story is.

If your brand is said to be like an organic product and then you find an illustrator that has organic hand drawn illustrations, then that's going to match with your brand's identity.

Having some illustrations that are completely different to what your brand is can be a problem because it is disconnected.

If you do not have illustrations on your website, it could still be a well functioning website.

But if you had something like an illustrative landing page or an engaging info-graphic, it would make your customers a little more engaged or interested in your products or services. People are always interested in illustrations and artwork whether they realize it or not.

It is everywhere;

It's not 100% necessary, but it can increase engagement so much that it is a good thing to invest in.

You do not have to strive for uniqueness. What you should think about is whether or not the illustration matches with your brand and brand's voice.

Even a logo is a form of illustration, it is just stylised. Illustrations can add to your branding in so many ways. Visual communication does that.

You can have something that is tailored to exactly what you want.

It is different from finding stock images of illustrations that already exist because they don't represent your brand. They also cannot be tailored uniquely to who you are.

But if you hire an illustrator they can make it exactly how you want. It can be a good opportunity for self expression.

Illustrations on social media can bring people to your website. People love seeing illustrations on Instagram or Facebook.

There is an opportunity to share more content from your site, and link people back to your site from social media because they go "Oh, I'll go to that site. It looks really pretty/interesting".

Lillian Webb Graphics on increasing website traffic;

"I did some illustrative designs for organic products that were reusable eco-friendly shopping bags. We did some illustrations about the life cycle of bags and how they can go to landfill and the environmental impact of that

...and put those illustrations on social media. She got a lot of engagements from social media that led people to her Shopify site. Because it was a visual thing, people could see where she was getting at because of the story of 'you should not use plastic bags, but reusable bags'".

Illustrating a process using infographics can be a good investment.

The investment comes from engagement and getting people interested. You have these unique brand components that are now part of your story, forever.

I think website illustrations are not what you should invest in right at the start of a business. They want to start with a logo, brand colours, a strong website base. Once your brand is ready for the next level, add the illustrations and make it better over time.

This may make you think, “wow, this could work with my website”, or “this could work with my branding”.

If you are talking about hiring an illustrator for books and print material then there is a lot of different advice.

For a website, look for an illustrator that has a visual style that can already match your branding. This is important because if it looks organic and natural, and your branding is more based on vector graphics with clearer lines and minimal, then it is not really going to match together.

Try and find something that already feels similar to what you are doing.

Communication is the biggest thing. You have to communicate with your illustrator right from the start, and listen to their process and how they work. That will make it easier when it comes to hiring.