Product

Quisine is an innovative service that delivers food from different national cuisines. It’s easy to use; it offers a diversity of meals typical for different countries; it provides quick delivery and adds innovations to all the customer journey from making an order to receiving a meal. That’s what the brand image was based on. The company name presents a compilation of two aspects: quick cuisine.

Logo Design

The process of visual branding creation started with logo design. Having analyzed the target audience and having done the market research, the designer started developing variants in different types of logos: wordmarks, lettermarks, combination marks, and symbols. The important factor to consider was the high readability of the logo as it was aimed at using on various platforms, devices, quite often on the go, so it had to be legible at once.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that the decision upon the corporate colors was made at this stage: two contrast colors were chosen for brand presentation, yellow and black.

Above, you can see some of the variants developed in this process:

1. The combination mark made of the brand name written in black all in lowercase letters and a lettermark  of the capital Q in yellow
2. The combination mark made of the brand name written in black in title case letters and a lettermark  of the capital Q in yellow
3. The wordmark of a brand name in lowercase in composition with a yellow square shape
4. The combination mark made of the brand name written in black all in lowercase letters and a symbol, an outline image of a bird’s head.

What’s more, the variants feature different typographic solutions for a brand sign: three options use different serif fonts and one of them uses the sans-serif font.

Testing these and other variants, the designer got more and more confident that the best approach to the logo design, in this case, is the classic wordmark wrapped in an elegant font and featured all in lowercase letters to set the friendly tone of communication with a client instantly. The choice of the font was made in favor of serif, to share the vibes of high-quality meals and fine dining.

The designer offered the color combinations within the chosen color palette to give the logo a higher level of flexibility in both web and offline marketing campaigns.

Characters

To make the brand catchy and memorable, original mascot characters were designed to feature connections with the main role models participating in the service. For example, a funny bird represents the chef, a dog looks like a courier always in a hurry to deliver the meals, and a bit futuristic rabbit may remind you of a manager having her hands full to accept all the orders.

Visual Consistency

The branding and promotion strategy of the service has to take into account both digital and physical communication with the user. The visual consistency is reached with several key elements: logo, colors, illustrations, and typography. From packaging design and uniforms to vehicle livery, website and social networks, all the channels of communication with the buyer look belonging to one system and grow brand awareness.

Packaging design options

Branded T-shirt

Vehicle livery design

Website home page

Website Design

The user interface design of the website is based on simplicity. It’s full of air and uses a limited color palette that supports quick connection to the brand and helps visitors to avoid distraction and make the web pages scanned easily due to contrast colors and readable fonts. The original illustrations support a positive user experience with the power of storytelling and give the layout original and trendy looks. Prominent CTA elements are seen instantly to focus users’ attention on the core interactive zones.

More Design Case Studies

Dicey. Mascot Design for Party Game

MYWONY. Brand Intro Cartoon Design for the Wedding Dresses Brand

Logo Design: Creative Logos for a Variety of Brands

Tasty Burger. Mobile App for Ordering Burgers

Florence App. Illustrations for Healthcare Service

Inspora. Brand and UI Design for Virtual Stylist

AppShack. Logo Design for a Digital Agency

LunnScape. Identity Design for a Landscape Company

Binned. Brand Identity Design for Cleaning Service

Reborn. Identity Design for a Restaurant

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Case Study: Identity Design for Food Delivery Service появились сначала на Design4Users.

Project

Dicey is a super cheerful and unpredictable party game for adults. As it often happens, creators came up with something for themselves and then shared it with the world: after getting bored playing the same drinking games over and over, they decided to create a new one—something fresh, exciting, and inclusive. So, they developed a simple concept focused around 4 different card categories: Group Play, Face Off, Wild Card, and Rules. Each category contains hilarious minigames designed to encourage creativity and group interaction. So, the target audience of the game is social drinkers of legal drinking age. It was aimed at groups of 4 or more participants and had to create camaraderie through a one-of-a-kind social gaming experience.

Here’s a quick introduction on how to play:

The task for the designer was to create a logo and a funny character that would catch attention, looked original, created the needed atmosphere and mood. Actually, that was one of the primary reasons for the clients to reach our team: they wanted to build the brand strategy around an illustrated character. As they mentioned in the brief, “the character should be reflective of the game itself—playful, mischievous, and a little bit goofy. Ideally, the character will appear frequently on our social media channels and branded swag.” So, from the start, the designer had to keep in mind that the images obtained as the result of the design process will be used for both print and digital.

The idea of a mascot was totally reasonable for the brand goals. The business practice of successful companies shows that a well-crafted mascot can work even more effectively than product endorsement with the help of a famous person. Mascots can reflect any traits of character, any style needed for product positioning and communicate via a diverse set of visuals. They broaden the horizons of personification. With mascots, designers and marketing specialists can create unexpected and catchy looks or make fantastic characters alive.

Let’s check what we came to.

The creative process for this project didn’t get separate parts for logo and mascot character design. Even at the initial stage of pencil sketching, the designers searched for the interaction and composition of both. Below you can see the sketches featuring the stage of the creative process: here the illustrator showed several different stylistic directions for a character and possible style of wordmark to match.

Although all the options were catchy and playful, there wasn’t much discussion about the choice: the variant that transformed a special polygonal dice from the game into the funny character was agreed upon as the best choice. So, the designer moved on to creating a digital version. So, meet Dicey monster, whose motto is “Up to no good”. He is a real symbol of the fun-loving chaos and mischievousness the game brings out.

The wordmark uses smooth lines, it’s elegant and stylish but also playful and friendly. Here it is in black-and-white variants.

As the brand sign was intended for social media graphics as well, the designer offered several color options for banners, avatars, etc.

The concept of the branded stickers looked this way.

Then the designer worked on the stylistics of the play cards. Again, it started with sketches to find the compositions that would reflect the key message.

After deciding upon the concept, the designer digitized the mascot illustrations for the play cards and cards of a tutorial with the instructions. Here are two concepts of card design with different typography. What’s more, one version features the text in all caps, while the other uses the title case for the card names. Anyway, both fonts look funny and entertaining. The cards show how flexible is the mascot to show the variety of moods, feelings, situations, and messages to the player.

Would you like to play Dicey with your friends?

Useful Case Studies

For those, who are interested to see more practical case studies with creative flows for a logo and identity design, here is the set of them.

AppShack. Logo Design for a Digital Agency

Brand Intro Cartoon for Wedding Dresses Brand

LunnScape. Identity Design for a Landscape Company

Binned. Brand Identity Design for Cleaning Service

Reborn. Identity Design for a Restaurant

Inspora. Brand and UI Design for Virtual Stylist

Andre. Logo and Identity Redesign for Landscape Firm

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Graphic Design Case Study: Creating a Mascot for a Party Game появились сначала на Design4Users.

What Is Mascot?

In basic terms, in design and marketing, a mascot is a character, a personified image that becomes a symbolic representation of a brand, company or even a public figure. The term origins from the French word “mascotte” which means lucky charm.

It’s worth mentioning that historically the term “mascot” was applied to figures of people, animals, or objects that were taken as a symbol of good luck by a particular group of people. So, for years mascots are seen as the carriers of luck and positive energy. That may be one of the reasons why they are so popular in the design for user experience and marketing goals when positive feedback and emotional appeal can have a direct connection to conversions and profit.

Famous character Tony the Tiger, mascot designed for Kellog’s Frosted Flakes

One of the areas where mascots have gained huge popularity is sports. Remember team mascots, especially for the teams whose names are based on real animals or creatures that could potentially get human-like characteristics. Team mascots could be presented not only with images of animals or people but also specially made fantastic creatures and have been highly effective to promote teams and grow their recognizability. One more example is well-known mascots of the Olympic Games designed specifically for every event with the visual features of the host country. In sports, mascots are not only a matter of uniting and support. They are also a huge business with all that merchandising stuff people buy to keep memories about events and mark their support to the team, country, or even a particular person. Another area that caught this approach is educational institutions that use mascots to build up strong branding.

Official mascots of the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2020

No wonder, with all that power, mascots got highly popular in marketing and advertising, much before it moved to the web. They won the attention of customers diversely, from small badges to live costumed characters able to physically communicate with people.

Kinder Pingui Mascots

Lively and full of energy Duracell bunny mascot

Milka purple cow mascot

Teltey tea folk

Today, mascots are also broadly applied widely in digital products for the web and mobile. Let’s review the reasons.

Mascot design process for Saily App

Benefits of Mascots

What’s so good about mascots that makes them used so widely?

Enhanced communication

Mascot becomes a good interconnector between the user and the product. In interfaces, it can serve well as a basic element of communication and interaction. Just changing its appearance (for example, mood, outfit, activities, etc.), may quickly deliver a clear message to the user. Mascots can communicate directly with the speech bubbles, provide visual prompts with various facial expressions, reflect the mood of the user with different graphic variations of the mascot, provide helpful instructions in an app onboarding tutorial, and congratulate the achievements.

Flexibility of personification

The business practice of successful companies shows that a well-crafted mascot can work even more effectively than product endorsement with the help of a famous person. Mascots can reflect any traits of character, any style needed for product positioning, and communicate via a diverse set of visuals. They broaden the horizons of personification. With mascots, designers and marketing specialists can create unexpected and catchy looks or make fantastic characters alive.

Logo mascot design by Tubik for Realli

Memorability and recognizability

Most of us are visually driven and our brains work in such a way that we notice images faster and remember them better than text. Being images far from abstract and having human-like features, mascots tend to take everything from the abilities of human memory: we catch them fast, easily remember them due to particular associations and recognize them faster than abstract images seeing them again. All the mentioned has great importance in creating strong brand awareness and building patterns in user interfaces.

Consistent visual marking

Mascots present wide opportunities for the visual marking of different carriers of identity, website pages, or app screens. Mascots can be used in logos, interface illustrations, hero banners, chatbots, stickers, various swag, and branded merch.

Logo mascot designed for LunnScape

Brand voice, tone, and character

Mascots are a strong way to transfer and support the general tone and voice which is the foundation of a brand strategy. Custom characters usually reflect the most important feature of the product and transfer the idea in a fast and harmonic way. What’s more, it enables a creative team to send the key message to the user: with a mascot, it won’t take long to understand if the product is serious or entertaining, lively or calm, business-like or easy-breeze, highly private or broadly social, and so on and so forth.

Emotional appeal

Although we tend to believe that logic and common sense rule our actions, a big part of the decision-making process relies on emotional appeal. A mascot is one of the well-checked methods to provide emotional triggers and feedback, let the interface or brand speak the user’s language. This way it makes the product more user-centered.

Originally created characters used as mascots for a babysitting service

Virality potential

An original catchy mascot can be used as a powerful element of virality: in this case, it becomes so popular with users that they not only spread it to each other but also create new versions, parodies, discussions, memes and the like. That also works efficiently in products for kids when the mascot actually becomes a key representer of the product and creates a high level of desirability.

Style and beautification

People change not as fast as they think: we all know that quality and functionality are at the head, but they still need a good dress to impress. Especially in terms of tight competition. Mascots often become a core element of the visual presentation for a website, mobile app, or physical product. So, it has a big impact on the aesthetic part of perception, adding beauty and style to the brand image.

Mascot character used as a hero image for an e-commerce website selling books for children

Features of an Effective Mascot

Sure, each case needs an individual approach to the mascot which will correspond to the particular goals and brand image. However, there’s a checklist of basic features that are essential to consider for any mascot design. To work well for marketing and user experience, a mascot should be:

• memorable
• recognizable
• original
• representing a consistent character
• flexible to adapt and adjust
• applicable for diverse tasks
• looking good in different sizes and resolutions
• stylistically harmonic
• lively and user-friendly.

Case Studies: Mascots in Branding

Let’s review some practical case studies when mascots became the center of marketing strategies. Quite often, if stakeholders and creative team make a decision upon such a technique, mascot starts its way from logo design. Mascot logos can work as independent symbols or together with a typographic part if a logo is a combination mark.

For example, here’s a logo for the landscape company Andre. Their first logo was based on a lettermark but in the process of the creative search for the brand redesign, the decision was made upon creating a mascot. They chose a friendly hummingbird whose image was harmonically combined with the shape of a leaf. Then the mascot set the foundation for the further development of corporate identity.

One more example is a mascot logo designed by Tubik for Whizzly, the social network for showcasing talents and sharing creative projects. The target audience of the app is teenagers and young adults, so the character had to set the connection with them and transfer the needed mood at once. The creative search brought the team to this cool monkey that knows the taste of fame. Animated logo version to use on the splash screen and promo animations allowed for adding an even brighter emotional background.

Another example to remember is the event branding case that was designed by Tubik for the local Behance portfolio event. It featured a dog mascot made of the words marking various design directions.

These days another powerful way to integrate the power of mascots into branding is stickers, like this set below featuring a pack of emotions for a cute dog character.

Case Studies: Mascots in UI

Mascots are helpful in web and mobile interfaces: they liven up interactions, catch up attention and draw it to needed details, become the memorable element, create important consistency of a general stylistic concept, and create the strong imitation of direct and human-like communication with the user.

Used in illustrations that show actions or interactions, a mascot is also a good way to avoid extra copy on the screen. This way, the precious space is saved for other layout elements or just more “air” really needed to create a good perception of data on the screen or page.

One of the bright cases for the issue was a mascot created for Toonie Alarm, a simple alarm app with elements of gamification. The idea of applying the mascot was set almost instantly to let it spread the voice and tone of the product, create the feeling of natural communication, and support the mood. So, Toonie was born to be a funny, cheerful bird, whose mission is to make the world brighter and help users to interact with the alarm. It informs users about news, rewards, and errors, and just adds some fun and color to everyday life.

Here is an example of a landing page we designed for a kindergarten: it features a super funny 3D animation of a mascot this way instantly setting the mood and amplifying the emotional appeal.

One more example to share is the case of web design for a platform devoted to zero-waste living. It features a consistent usage of a small but important mascot, a little bird that accompanies the website visitor from one page to another. The mascot sets a strong association with the theme of nature and its engaging animation makes the pages more lively and dynamic.

No doubt, the use of mascots in UI should be based on careful user and market research not to overload the interface. The aim of a mascot in any kind of environment is to simplify and speed up the interaction with a product or information flow. If the objective is not achieved, the mascot can play a bad role and distract users.

Useful Reading

Here are some handy articles to continue plunging into the theme of branding, illustration, and user experience design for various goals.

Functional Art: 10 Big Reasons to Apply Illustrations in UI Design

Creative Stages of Logo Design

Tips and Strategies of Design for Web Marketing

UX Design: How to Make Web Interface Scannable

Mobile App Branding: Tips, Strategies, and Examples

How to Create Catchy Flat Illustrations

The Role of Branding in UI Design

6 Creative Stages of Design for Branding

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение How to Use the Power of Mascots in Branding and UI Design появились сначала на Design4Users.

One of our previous articles was devoted to the mascots in establishing an effective brand strategy. The business practice of successful companies shows that thoughtfully designed mascot in some cases can work even better than product endorsements with the help of a famous person. Mascots can reflect any traits of character, follow any style needed for product positioning, and communicate with the customer via a wide set of visual techniques. They push the limits of personification and give the chance to create unexpected combinations of elements or make fantastic and non-existing characters alive.

Today we would like to show you the practical case of applying a mascot in UI design by the example of Toonie Alarm. We have already shown a case study on the general concept of user interface design for this app and this time the story is continued with Toonie, a funny bird that goes with the user all around the app.

Task

Designing a mascot for UI of the simple and entertaining alarm application for iPhones.

Tools

Wacom Intuos pen tablet, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop

Process

Requirements to the mascot

Furthermore, mascot plays the important role in perspective of interconnection between the user and the product. Integrated into the interface, mascot becomes the core element of communication and interaction, therefore in different states, it can become the basic way to deliver the message to the user.

The basic advantages of applying mascots as a part of UI design include:

Memorability. People tend to remember substantial images faster and longer than abstract ones, especially the characters reflecting human-like features.

Recognizability. As long as it is easier to remember the mascot, it is also easier to recognize the product and its features among the others.

Visual marking. Mascot allows marking visually anything connected with the product creating the additional field for promotional activity.

Personalization. Mascot is one of the best ways to provide the element of direct communication and personal attention to users, which they usually appreciate.

Stylistic support. Mascots being a highly flexible element can become a central part of the general style concept for the product.

Consistency. Mascots applied in a user interface can become a sort of convention and support the general and harmonic perception of the whole interface rather than the set of separated screens.

Emotion and interest trigger. A mascot is one of the fastest ways to provide the feature of emotional feedback to the user, let the interface speak user’s language, and therefore make the product more user-centered.

Aesthetic satisfaction. Mascot as an object of a sophisticated artistic approach can become the feature supporting the user’s need for aesthetic pleasure. The pleasant-looking mascot is a good reason to make a choice in favor of a particular product in case it’s compared to the ones with the same functionality but less attractive graphic support.

The long-term perspective of image development. Mascots accomplished properly usually become the element of long-term branding strategy and are able to satisfy multiple needs getting transformed and refreshing the experience of product use without loosing recognizability.

Efficient mascots should be based on thorough user research, analyzing needs, wishes and expectations of the target audience, and also an attentive study of the market environment to support the appropriate level of originality as the basis for effective design solutions. Therefore, efficient mascot should be:

• memorable
• recognizable
• original
• representing a consistent character
• flexible to adapt and adjust
• applicable for diverse tasks
• looking good in different sizes and resolutions
• stylistically harmonic
• lively and user-friendly.

Designing the mascot for Toonie Alarm, Tubik designers based their creative search on this well-proven set of features.

Toonie the Cheerful Bird

As for Toonie Alarm, the idea of applying the mascot was set almost instantly as the mascot is not only a sort of communicator between the interface and the user but also a great representative of the brand able to enhance its recognizability. Moreover, it has a great impact on easy establishing the voice and tone of the product, creating the feeling of natural communication, and supporting the mood. That was the point when Toonie was born to be a funny cheerful bird, whose mission is to make the world brighter and help users to interact with the alarm. It informs users about news, rewards, errors, and just adds some fun and color to everyday life.

The first step of creating a mascot was the strategically important decision on the character behind it. Considering the nature of the app which is basically an alarm and is aimed at being used on an everyday basis, the mascot had to reflect this major part of functionality quickly and efficiently. On the other hand, the designer had to take into account the high level of competition in this sector: there are already many alarm apps using diverse stylistic approaches to attract users’ attention and satisfy their needs. So, the task was to create a mascot that will look original in the terms of existing competition and at the same time sending the quick and clear message to the users about the nature of the app.

The initial brainstorming session brought many ideas for a mascot, from live alarm character to different cute animals and fantastic creatures with visual markers associated with waking up, alarm, cheerful morning, etc. Still, the idea agreed upon as the most effective was a cute and funny bird. There are many logical reasons for this choice, the key of which is the association with an early bird catching the worm typical for many countries around the world. So, the first rough sketches of the future users’ friend—Toonie the Blue Bird.

Another reason that strengthened the idea of a mascot presenting an easily recognized animal is that the alarm app is supported by the huge pack of stickers. They are used as rewards for being persistent: users get them for waking up several times at the same period of the day. Those cute stickers are performed at the entertaining style supporting the general design concept of the whole app and all of them represent recognizable animals, so the major mascot also chosen in this direction was agreed upon as more effective and harmonic than fantastic creatures or personified material objects.

Now let’s check what functions cheerful Toonie mascot was aimed at.

Mascot functions in user interface

The first appearance of Toonie in public happened in a short animated teaser presenting the logo and brand name of the application. Naturally, for the teaser, the mascot was shown quickly just revealing some very general features.

The next step where Toonie showed its potential in full glory was app tutorial screens. As you can see in the animated presentation below, Toonie plays the role of a character communicating with the users and informing them about the basic functions and features of the app. Visually, the bird mascot also becomes the foundation for feeling all three screens of the tutorial as the integral complex, a united part of the app. Moreover, interface animation is applied in a way that supports this consistency of interactions through motion and transformations of the most prominent visual element which is a mascot.

In actual interactions with the app, Toonie mascot takes over the role of communicator at every step when a user has to be informed about something. This way of having a conversation feels more natural to many users than just impersonal copy blocks of notifications. It creates the illusion of chatting with a real person, even is it is realized with a personified mascot.

The screen below, showing that the user hasn’t set an alarm yet, supports the message with a funny mascot illustration: the bird has fallen down as it is empty on the screen. Such an approach lets designers not to leave the screen empty and use the space for another spark of branding and stylistic consistency.

The next screen you see is Stickers Screen keeping the collection of stickers that users have already collected or locked stickers that can be collected in the future. Again, Toonie informs the user about the existing state of things and encourages them to collect all the existing stickers waking up on time.

If users collect all the set of stickers, a special pop-up notifies them on that achievement with congratulations and certainly, this message comes from the mascot of the app.

As it was mentioned earlier, mascots usually have a big potential for further development and application. It was also tried with Toonie: its image together with the other stickers was stylized and animated for the special Toonie Halloween Stickers edition devoted to seasonal holidays.

Halloween stylization featuring Toonie mascot in illustrated pop-up was used to visually support notification about a special offer for Halloween.

So, the case of Toonie Alarm application showed the efficiency and diversity of the ways via which mascots can support users and attract their attention to important elements. As was mentioned in the article devoted to peculiarities of visual perception in UI, in a vast majority of cases people fix and perceive pictorial elements like icons and illustrations faster than words. The case of Toonie Alarm proved the effectiveness of the approach for simple problem-solving applications used every day. Copy blocks combined with appropriate images of a mascot inform users whatever their key way of perception is, boosting the user-friendly nature of interactions. Moreover, the funny and cheerful nature of the mascot, as well as tone and voice chosen for the communicative copy parts, established the positive emotional background of perception and user experience, which works effectively for the wide target audience.

Originally written for Tubik Blog
Welcome to download Toonie Alarm via App Store
Welcome to read case study on Toonie Alarm UI Design

Сообщение Design Case Study: Mascot for Toonie Alarm появились сначала на Design4Users.

Here in Tubik, we have felt all the variety of stones in that way. Today we invite our readers to review the diverse purposes for which graphic design can be highly beneficial as we have checked in design practice.

Graphic design as a creative field

As we mentioned in one of our previous articles about the issue, graphic design can be described as the sphere of human activity that lies on the crossroads of several directions, first of all, visual arts, communication, and psychology. Basically, graphic designers do the job of communication to others by means of graphic (visual) elements such as images of different styles and complexity, types and fonts, pictograms, shapes and sizes, colors and shades, lines, and curves, etc. Graphic designer makes all those elements of visual perception transfer the message, so he makes them functional. Therefore, we could say that graphic designers are artists applying their talents mostly not in pure art, but communicating and purposeful art.

Modern graphic design broadly covers all spheres of human life which deal with visual communication, from books and posters to sophisticated mobile applications or 3D animation. Let’s look into directions in which graphic designers can express their creativity for the sake of solving problems and satisfying needs.

Graphic design directions

Nowadays, graphic design is an incredibly broad sphere for the application of artistic talents. In particular, it includes:

• editorial design
• illustration
• identity (logo and branding) design
• icons and pictograms
• typography
• interface graphics and elements
• print advertisements
• big print items such as posters and billboards
• signs
• packaging, etc.

Thus, it’s easily seen that modern designers in this sphere have multiple options to apply their talents. In all the mentioned directions, the basic purpose of graphic design is to serve a particular purpose or even a set of them by means and techniques of art.

Graphic design in modern life full of digital devices is getting more and more technological.  Famous Italian designer Massimo Vignelli said “The life of a designer is a life of fight. Fight against the ugliness. Just like a doctor fights against disease. For us, the visual disease is what we have around, and what we try to do is cure it somehow with design.” Remembering the words we have to say that the purposes of modern graphic design are pushed further and further. Not only does it beautify the physical or digital object, but also helps its users, navigates them, guides their way via which they can get both aesthetic pleasure and problem-solving benefits.

Graphic design purposes

Today, graphic design can set diverse purposes. It rarely happens that the object of graphic design serves only one objective. Looking over the most essential of them, we would mention the following.

Identifying

This purpose, first of all, serves for branding reasons. It is primarily concerned with creating logos which usually lies the foundation for the whole branding strategy. This is the task at which designers work with multiple factors combining specific features of the target audience, laws, and rules of artistic harmony, the psychology of color and shape impact on human perception and emotions, current situation on the market, business goals of the brand or company.

Numerous logos accomplished by studio designers have proved that this symbolic image plays the crucial role in all the next stages of brand strategy, including print work (like posters, business cards, corporate documentation templates, etc.), interface design (when brand or company uses digital sources and channels of reaching their clients like blogs, websites, apps, widgets, etc.), branded items (like stationery, cups, notebooks, etc.) and other directions. The efficient logo is usually based on deep analysis supported by the designer’s talent and skills and presents a balanced mixture of art and functionality. Thinking over all the details, the designer selects the type and image of a logo that will correspond to the objectives of the company or brand strategy.

Andre logo 

Lion browser logo icon

Toonie logo design

fOxygenic logo

Design4Users logo tested in print stickers

PassFold logo

Read more about types of logos and creative stages of logo design

Beautifying

This is the broadly used function of graphic design items that have found its comprehensive realization in all the spheres of users’ interaction with visual stuff, from advertising to book covers and cartoons, to user interfaces of all kinds, packaging, photos, and tons of other things. It’s not a secret that people are not only rational but also emotional creatures, and most of us are visually driven and aesthetically engaged. Although the content and functions are the most important factors of making a product problem-solving, the old classic trend hasn’t changed: people still believe that a good dress is a card of invitation. An attractive and stylish look is traditionally highly important to make your user think about trying the product, especially in conditions of modern intense competition.

Muscles Magazine

Tales of the Jazz Age Book Cover

Graphic design in all its variety becomes a powerful tool of interface beautification. It can be applied in the slightest details like icons and up to significant elements like illustrations and mascots.

Singify App Tutorial

Cafe Coupon App

Moneywise App

Timeline App

Toonie Stickers

Setting the theme

A broad variety of graphic design techniques and diversity of approaches establish a steady foundation for setting the theme of the offered product via visual elements. Like the copy is able to not only transfer the message but also set the tone and voice of communication, the visual elements, including background, typography, composition, color palette, shapes and sizes, stylistic approaches can immediately inform the user about the features and market segment of the app or website and also appeal to emotions of the target audience. Visual perception plays an incredible role in decision-making, especially in cases of the first interaction when only several short minutes and sometimes even seconds are vital to get the user interested. This funсtion also works when the graphics highlight specific trends or events.

Lowrider

Underwater explorer

Pikachu Poster

Apple Event Animated Graphics

Californication Bus

San Francisco Painted Ladies

Explaining and guiding

This function of graphic design elements is widely used both in print and in all the types of interfaces, first of all in various tutorials, manuals, tool-tips, guides, etc. No need to say that here a picture is really worth a thousand words: it saves precious time and helps to avoid big copy blocks. Moreover, graphics based on a thorough analysis of the target audience turn on the mechanism of empathy and emotional appeal which also enhances user experience and supports business goals.

Travel App Tutorial

Shauts App Tutorial

Saily App Tutorial

Ryiadh Tour Guide

Toonie Alarm Tutorial

Enhancing navigation

Custom graphic elements are a great tool enhancing the navigation and therefore boosting usability. Based on user research and testing, it can have a great impact on conversions and retaining readers, providing an easy flow of journey through the website or app. In addition, all this positive influence is supported by the aesthetic pleasure that users get from sophisticated visual elements and harmonic composition.

Weather App

Passfold App

Veggie App

Boosting communication with a character

The element of personification thoughtfully applied in the product can boost positive user experience, enhance brand image and brand awareness. That is one of the reasons why creating mascots is often a part of a general design concept and content strategy. And that is the job where graphic designers can show their best. Efficient mascots should be based on a thorough analysis of needs, wishes, and expectations of the target audience, and also an attentive study of the market environment to support the appropriate level of originality as the basis for effective design solutions.

Mascots are also very helpful in interfaces: they liven up the general process, catch up user’s attention, become the memorable element, create important support for a stylistic concept and make the illusion of direct communication with the user.

Monster Stickers and their animated versions

Spring Girl

Saily App Mascot

Toonie Alarm Mascot

Read more about the advantages of efficient mascots here

Making the copy stylish

One more important perspective of graphic design is typography. Designers are usually keen to make the copy applied in the products not only legible and readable but also nice, attractive, and emotional. In cases of lettering for branding, it also adds such vital features as originality and recognizability.

Lettering for Saily logo

Lettering for Genius Bar

Lettering for Tubik logo

Lettering for Ribbet logo

Custom decorative lettering

As we can see, there are multiple purposes that can be set as well as multiple goals that can be achieved through graphic design. Diversity of approaches enables to the creation of original and unique design solutions and with support of user research, analysis and thoughtful testing graphic design elements can efficiently enhance usability, strengthen branding and provide a positive user experience. That is the point where art and functionality merge and meld for the sake of solving problems and making people happier.

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение User-Friendly Goals Hit with Graphic Design появились сначала на Design4Users.

The essence of illustration

According to the definition of Merriam-Webster dictionary, the verb “illustrate” in its wide-spread and most recognized meanings means “to clarify”; “to make clear by giving or by serving as an example or instance”; “to provide with visual features intended to explain or decorate”; “to show clearly”. However, it should be remembered that initially, it derived from Latin “illustrare” meaning “light up, enlighten, illuminate”. Although it is the obsolete meaning now, it really adds much to all the diverse potential of illustration in digital graphic design, in particular for UI/UX projects.

Historically, illustration has a long and amazing path and perhaps could be included in the list of the most diverse directions in art. On the basis of its progress in print production like books, comics, magazines and newspapers, advertising materials and so on, illustration as the sphere of visual art found the new lease of life with the development of technology. The design tasks got even more challenging and therefore interesting. Digital illustration, as well as the platforms for which it had to be created, brought new horizons in this sort of art.

Sketches for UI illustrations 

Anyway, no matter where illustrations appeared, how and for what purpose they were created, the basics were still the same: the aim of illustration was to enlighten, to clarify, to deliver the message by means of visual elements. In modern graphic design, therefore, illustration is an image that creates a visual message. To make the illustration functional, this image should be easily recognizable and preferably the information it transfers should be decoded similarly if not identically by different viewers.

Earlier we have already published the article about such small but highly meaningful visual elements as icons, their types, functions and vital role in creating efficient UI/UX solutions. As well as the icons, illustrations, mostly being more detailed and artistic images, also have important functions behind them and often become an effective way to boost usability and in the same way to present nice artistic elements.

Features

Illustration used as a part of the interface should become a working functional element. Making the decision in favor of using an illustration of any kind on the screen or a webpage, the designer has to think thoroughly how to make everything possible from its broad potential. Illustration in most cases becomes an efficient way to provide the user with a piece of information faster and easier than it could happen with the text. Using illustration in layout, it is possible to fulfill multiple user needs that is why it is so popular in user interfaces of different kinds.

So, to become an efficient element of a layout, illustration applied in user interface should be:
– meaningful
– recognizable
– preferably straightforward and unambiguous
– clarifying
– attractive
– harmonic and corresponding with the general stylistic concept of the interface
– improving usability and user experience in general
– not overloading the screen or page.

UI illustration for Toonie Alarm

Considering these positions, let’s look at some practices of using illustration in design.

Mascots and characters

Perhaps, one of the most efficient ways to apply illustration techniques in design both as a visual and functional element are mascots of different types. Mascots are images, usually personified, which in most cases represent the brand, product or service identity and therefore become its symbolic convention via the entire application or website.

Veggie App Concept 

Mascot as a graphic design object needs great attention as they have to represent the nature of the brand or product. Mascot becomes the element of identity and inter-connector between the user and the product. In many cases, the mascot is the basic element of communication and interaction, therefore in different states, it can become the basic way to deliver the message to the user.

Design version of Saily app mascot

Obviously, mascots are very helpful in interfaces: they liven up the general process, catch up user’s attention, become the memorable element, create important support for a stylistic concept and make the illusion of direct communication with the user. Also, wisely used in illustrations featuring actions or interactions, a mascot can become a good way to avoid using too much copy on the screen and in this way save space for other important elements of the layout or just more “air” also really needed to create a good perception of data on the screen or page.

Sheriff Foxx Character 

Astrocats

Tutorials and tool-tips

One of the good ways to use the illustration in UI is diverse tutorial screens and any kinds of tool-tips. In this case, they fully reveal their potential in explanation and clarification. The options can be totally diverse from simple icon-like to artistic and sophisticated ones. Illustrations of this kind become a good way to boost usability minimizing the necessity of using the copy on the screens. They are particularly efficient in apps for kids and youngsters as they usually feel this sort of explanation more user-friendly.

Illustrated tool-tips for Saily App 

Singify Tutorial

Tour Guide App

Travel App Tutorial

Rewards

One more good case when a designer could consider the option of using illustration in the interface is the case of various awards and rewards, with which the user marks any kind of progress in the app or website, sort of stickers, medals, signs, coins and the like. Again, the options can be extremely diverse, from simple symbolic shapes to elaborately drawn detailed images, but anyway, used wisely and accomplished in accordance with the general stylistic decisions of the whole app or website, they become one more step towards user-friendly interactions and positive user experience.

Good Sign App Concept

Simple Blog App 

Snake Battle App

Theme and style illustrations

Illustrations of this kind are usually applied in a user interface basically to provide visual support of the general stylistic concept and perhaps the topic of the app or a website as well as events, seasonal features and so on. Their main purpose is to support all the functional elements of the layout with the general harmonic and attractive appearance of the screen or page. It should also be mentioned that in some cases illustration of this type can add the element of gamification or more artistic feel to the whole product. In one of our previous articles, considering the points of creating potentially viral UI/UX design, we mentioned that one of the ways is to add some unique, custom and stylish visual elements so that people wanted to share them with the others as well as satisfy their aesthetic needs. Illustrations have great potential at this perspective.

Underwater Explorer

Weather App

Page 404

Rio 2016 Olympics

Moneywise App

Obviously, this article is only the start for the discussion of multiple and diverse functions of illustration in UI design and we are going to continue it in further articles sharing our studio experience. However, even the general basics mentioned today are still the strong support of the most important position about UI design process: any elements of the interface should be purposeful and functional, supporting the user, enhancing usability and providing the solid basis of positive user experience and problem-solving. Illustrations are not the exception and their application in the interface should be thoroughly thought-out and accomplished with the target user in mind at every stage of the process.

Useful Reading and Inspiration

If you want to see more collections of illustrations or discover how they work in particular design projects, here’s the set of posts for you.

17 Trends in Illustration and Graphic Design to Meet 2020
Motion Design: 20 Inspiring Animated Illustrations
Winter Olympics Illustration. Step-by-Step Process
Moonworkers. Digital Illustrations on Film Production
Florence App. Illustrations for Healthcare Service
Digital Art: 40+ Inspiring Illustrations on Diverse Themes
26 Digital Artworks About Design Process

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение UI as Art. Illustration in Interfaces появились сначала на Design4Users.

In our article about illustration potential in user interfaces, we have already mentioned mascots and characters, providing some general ideas on how their implementation can improve UI concepts as well as become the foundation for solid and strong branding. So, today let’s analyze in more detail what are the advantages and secrets of mascot magic and when they are applicable.

The essence of a mascot

Mascots are images, usually personified, which in most cases represent the brand, product, or service identity and therefore become its symbolic convention via the whole application or website as well as the branded items and promotional activities.

Andre Landscape mascot concept

Mascot becomes the element of identity and inter-connector between the user and the product. In many cases, the mascot is the basic element of communication and interaction; therefore, in different states, it can become the basic way to deliver the message to the user.

The business practice of successful companies shows that thoughtfully designed mascots can work even better than product endorsements with the help of a famous person. Mascots can reflect any traits of character, follow any style needed for product positioning and communicate with the customer via a wide set of visual techniques. Mascots push the limits of personification and give a chance to create unexpected combinations of elements or make fantastic and non-existing characters alive.

Designing mascots for our numerous customers as well as our own studio brand, we have already checked their great power as a multipurpose and comprehensive design element. Efficient mascots should be based on thorough user research, analyzing needs, wishes, and expectations of the target audience, and also an attentive study of the market environment to support the appropriate level of originality as the basis for effective design solutions.

Saily mascot design process

Advantages of mascots

Let’s see what the important practical advantages of mascots are applied in branding and content strategy.

Memorability

People tend to remember substantial and actual images much longer than abstract ones, and characters reflecting human-like features are the favorites of this technique. No doubt, it can have a significant influence on the level of brand awareness.

Recognizability

Mascot can become a strong element of an original and unique piece of the content presenting a particular product or service. A well-done analysis of the target audience, as well as a sophisticated and thought-out design, can provide the brand with an important element making it recognizable in seconds. This advantage is also directly connected with the previous one. As long as it is easier to remember the mascot, it is also easier to recognize the product and its features, among others.

Visual marking

Mascot allows marking visually anything connected with the product creating an additional field for promotional activity. A mascot can work as a logo, transform into illustrations, elements of gamification, printed stickers, and every time, it will support a strong visual connection with a brand.

Personalization

As has already been mentioned, users usually appreciate the element of direct communication and personal attention to them. Mascot is one of the best ways to provide it. It can communicate directly with the speech bubbles, provide visual prompts via various facial expressions, reflect the mood of the user with different graphic variations of the mascot, provide helpful instructions in the tutorial and congratulate the achievements. There are hundreds of ways to strengthen the element of personal communication using mascots. For users, it can make a big difference, especially in cases of interaction: communication with a particular character often provides a much more positive and dynamic user experience than impersonal instruction sent by the system.

Stylistic support

Mascots, being a highly flexible element, can become a central part of the general style concept for the product. It is easy to send the key message to the user via mascot: it won’t take long to understand if the product is serious or entertaining, lively or calm, business-like or easy-breezy, highly private or broadly social, and so on and so forth.

Product voice and tone

In combination with the previous feature, mascots can play a great role in supporting general tone and voice, which is the basis for a branding strategy. Mascot usually reflects the most important feature of the product and transfers the idea much faster and in a user-friendly way. Moreover, it often gives a chance to avoid long copy bulks in product descriptions enabling visual perception of information which is by far faster than text perception.

Onboarding tutorial for Singify

Emotion and interest trigger

Dealing with users, we all should remember that they are unique individuals, unique inner worlds full of their own emotions. Emotions and feelings are often the main power moving people to a particular choice, decision or operations. Mascot is one of the fastest ways to provide this feature of emotional feedback to the user, letting them speak the user’s language, and therefore make the product more user-centered.

Aesthetic satisfaction

Although practical and problem-solving issues mostly come first as the central way of attracting and retaining users, aesthetic satisfaction shouldn’t be neglected. Mascot, as an element of the sophisticated artistic approach, can become the feature supporting this user’s need. A pleasantly looking mascot is a good reason to make a choice in favor of a particular product in the case when it’s compared to the ones with the same functionality but less attractive graphic support.

Long-term strategic potential

Mascots accomplished properly usually become the element of long-term branding strategy and are able to satisfy multiple needs getting transformed and refreshing the experience of product use without losing recognizability.

Saily mascot design process

Diversity of usage

Mascots can be applied in hundreds of various ways, both in digital graphics and physical products, starting from simple stickers and illustrations up to printed stuff, dolls and toys, play characters and cartoons.

Element of virality

Unique and stylish mascot can become a strong element of virality, becoming so popular among users that they will not only spread it to each other but also create new versions, parodies, discussions, and the like. That works especially efficiently in products for kids when the mascot actually becomes a central representative of the product and creates a high level of desirability.

Element of consistency

Mascot applied in various elements of branding and content strategy creates the feeling of consistency which is the basis of strong brand presence and positioning on the market.

Requirements to mascots

Therefore, according to everything mentioned above, we can sum up what requirements for efficient mascots should be considered. Among them, we would insist that a mascot should be:

• memorable
• recognizable
• original
• representing a consistent character
• flexible to adapt and adjust
• applicable for diverse tasks
• looking good in different sizes and resolutions
• stylistically harmonic
• lively and user-friendly.

Mascots in UI

Mascots are very helpful in interfaces: they liven up the general process, catch up user’s attention, become a memorable element, create important support for a stylistic concept, and make the illusion of direct communication with the user.

Also, wisely used in illustrations featuring actions or interactions, a mascot can become a good way to avoid using too much copy on the screen and, in this way, save space for other important elements of the layout or just more “air” really needed to create a good perception of data on the screen or page.

Saily mascot applied to mobile app user interface

Certainly, mascots should be wisely applied in order not to overload the interface where it is not needed. The aim of a mascot in any kind of environment is to simplify and speed up the interaction with a product. If this objective is not achieved, the mascot can play a bad role and create unnecessary distractions instead of improvement for the branding. In our next post, we will continue this topic, considering some pitfalls and issues necessary to consider in the process of creating a mascot as the element of branding. Stay tuned!

Branding Design Case Studies

Here’s a set of more case studies sharing the design solutions and approaches for some of the design projects done by the Tubik team.

Page Turner. Identity and Packaging Design for Bookstore Chain

BlockStock. Brand Identity and Website for Minecraft Models Resource

SwitLuv. Theme Packaging Design About Love for Sweets Brand

Fulfill. Illustrations and Web Design for 3PLs Marketplace

Roebuck. Mobile Design and Illustrations for Educational App

Garden Gates. Identity and Packaging Design for Garden Center

Bikker. Identity Design and Illustrations for Biking Service

Kaiten. Identity and Product Design for Food Marketplace

Glup. Delivery App Branding and UX Design

Crezco. Brand Identity and UI/UX Design for Fintech Service

FarmSense. Identity and Web Design for Agricultural Technology

Originally written for Tubik Blog, graphic and video content by tubik

Сообщение Mascot Power for Effective Branding появились сначала на Design4Users.