Illustrated characters are a very popular trend and as I stated in my guest post for Six Revisions: Five types of effective headers in web design, they add some character and a sense of friendliness to your website.
I’ve put together a showcase of my favourite illustrated characters along with some further links for inspiration.
Silverback App
Mail Chimp
Fatburgr
Cyclops
Old Loft
Branded 07
The Alamo Basement
Freelance Switch
Veerle
Ellis Lab
Project Vino
Ryan O’Rourke
Schneeballschl8
Candy Cult
Spinen
What’s your favourite?
Further reading
- 45 Excellent examples of using character illustrations in web design
- 20 Sites with beautiful character illustrations
- 30 Creative examples of illustrations in web design
Written with love from Lee Munroe.
Follow @leemunroe or subscribe to the blog for more web design articles.
May 6th 2009
Liam J Moore says:
I seem to remember an illustration on this site, http://www.sponsorlee.org
*cough* shameless promotion *cough*
May 6th 2009
Lee says:
@Liam: lol I wasn’t gona mention it. The character of me was actually done by Danielle McCormick though, so if anyone needs a good illustrated character for their site they can contact Danielle http://www.daniellemccormick.com
May 6th 2009
Sean Delaney says:
Another great post Lee! You have listed some beautiful websites with really good illustrations in them that can give up and coming designers lots of inspiration!
I’m trying to better my skills using Illustrator and designing in general so I’m always looking for really good illustrated websites to bookmark so now having some all on one page to look up will help me out loads…
Thanks
Sean
May 6th 2009
Joe Scanlon says:
Some really nice designs there – thanks
May 6th 2009
Niki Brown | The Design O'Blog says:
I love sites that feature illustrations. They definitely make a site much friendlier.
This is part of the reason I included the ‘office mouse’ character on my site: http://nikibrown.com
May 6th 2009
Steve says:
Another illustration post, does anyone do anything unique anymore?
This same topic and features have been covered 16 times already.
May 6th 2009
lipelip says:
Nice post, I love Silverback’s Gorilla ! If you want to see how they made it ยป http://hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/recent-work-silverback
I’ve just found this one to complete your list
http://www.lionite.com/
May 6th 2009
Sean Delaney says:
@steve: There is nothing wrong with putting together a blog post about Illustrations, even if they have been covered before by another Web Professional. Fair enough, you might have came across these illustrated sites on your travels but that doesn’t mean everybody else has…..
I’m sure that this post by Lee will benefit a lot of students or even young designer’s.
Sean
May 7th 2009
Ria Little says:
DOH!… I’m just planning to put my site together and just put up the landing page 2 days ago with an illustrated me!
Hope it’s not going to look dated before its even started… still time to rethink.
Although I guess there is always going to be hundreds of sites out that do something like what you do? Right? hmm…
May 7th 2009
rahul sahu says:
very nice templet and use full links
May 8th 2009
Mike says:
great article. thx for trend watching ;]
May 8th 2009
Josip Bosnjakovic says:
Very nice design … same patterns but still different … my kinda design …
May 8th 2009
Patricia says:
I think that mail chimp is adorable…
May 11th 2009
Lee says:
@Sean: Yeah really wish I had the time to better my illustrator/sketching skills also. Some great looking characters
@Niki: Looks like a friendly mouse all right. Does this mean you have mice in your office?
@lipelip: Thanks for the link, really interesting http://hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/recent-work-silverback
@Steve: You’re right, it has been covered before (see the further reading links) but thought it would be useful anyhow
May 11th 2009
aeffaeff says:
check the smart characters on http://www.zenbar.de
May 12th 2009
Gis says:
Thanks for the links dear!! This is so my kind of design xD I am saving it for inspiration!! BTW, today i added more birdies to my site xD pass by later if u can!!
May 14th 2009
Iaman says:
I think my main problem with the “illustrated characters” trend is that there are a lot of websites that use it and the character breaks the overall cohesiveness to the page’s style (or just looks like butt)
May 22nd 2009
Fabio Couto says:
Great Post Lee, I think illustrated characters work really well, specially in design related web sites.
May 29th 2009
divinefusion says:
fabulous collection. Love these characters, they are relateable and memorable.
February 12th 2010
Freelancing career says:
Its a very nice post, very excellent illustration.
Thanks for the posting