The 7 Best Things About Colourful Characters in Illustration Design

Colorful characters in illustration design are one of the most popularly sought after illustration design services. There are two reasons for it. First, character illustration is one of the most challenging processes to complete. And secondly, unique character illustration has a lot to offer to an organization, whether it is a startup or established enterprise.

Capturing a marketing message, the essence of the brand, and still appealing to the target customers are the main characteristics of a colorful character. To help you understand how valuable they are, we decided to compile a list of the seven best things about colorful characters in illustration design.

1) It pushes branding forward!

Many brands are struggling to find visuals that truly represent them. Often, the logo is simply not enough to convey the right message and in the right tone. Colorful characters come to the rescue. Brands can work hand in hand with illustrators or designers to develop a solution that genuinely represents them.

Colorful character illustration leverages different design styles, body posture, facial expression, colors, and clothing to deliver the visual that stands as a synonym for a brand. This is something that can genuinely push branding forward and facilitate future marketing efforts.

Colorful characters used as a pillar for branding strategy enable the target audience to build a connection with the brand. Most importantly, it makes it easy for the target audience to relate to the illustration.

2) Improves memorability

One of the essential characteristics of any visual used in marketing is memorability. The online marketing channels are flooded with ads these days. Brands are forced to use thumb-stopping ads to make people stop scrolling and see what the ad is about. To do this, brands need to use different visuals every time, thus sacrificing memorability.

Character illustrations bring a breath of fresh air in brand marketing. We are talking about human illustrations. Real characters with unique facial expressions and body postures are colored to pick up attention and spark interest.

This is the best way to improve memorability across your marketing channels. Colorful characters are engaging with all demographics. After all, they depict a human character, and we are all biologically hardwired to remember faces and expressions better than anything else.

3) Wide applications in all forms of marketing

Investing in a visual that can be used in one marketing campaign is inefficient in terms of cost. Spending cash on illustrations or photography every time you need to launch a social media or PPC advertising campaign is costly. Not to mention other forms of marketing such as outdoor hoarding or video marketing. This is where colorful characters make the cash count.

Since we are talking about an illustration here, brands will get a vector image. It means that the image can be printed or uploaded anywhere without sacrificing its quality. It can be put on a company sign right outside of the office building, included in the email marketing material, or even printed out on mugs.

The bottom line is that colorful characters designed or illustrated by an in-house team or acquired via illustration design services have broad applications. They can be used in all forms of marketing and across all marketing channels. They will always look the same.

4) Emotional tone

Brands always want to convey messages in a specific emotional tone. To do it, they leverage colors and particular typefaces. So far, it does deliver results, at least to some extent. All of it is based on the psychology of color and psychology of fonts. However, one color or typeface can invoke different emotions in different demographics.

Characters are the easiest way to add an emotional tone to a marketing message and be sure that you’ve hit the right tone. People are used to reading emotions from other people’s faces. We are doing it instantly and almost subconsciously.

Colorful characters convey an emotional tone in a universal language. Their postures and facial expressions can be fine-tuned to give the most subtle emotional tones. On top of that, there are colors as well, which can be used to complete the message.

5) Consistent visual approach

A consistent visual approach is essential for brands as it enables brands to be easily recognizable. It improves memorability as well. This is why brands tend to choose one color palette and use it across the landscape. It goes well beyond the visuals used in marketing. The same color palette can be seen on their website, live chat, forms, landing pages, social media account, email, etc.

Colorful characters fit perfectly in this unique setting. Brands can be specific with illustration design services providers and require the character to be done in a particular palette or specific background. Incorporating colors in character illustrations is easy. Illustrators can play with skin tone, hair and eye color, and colors and texture of clothing.

Colorful characters can bring more consistency to the visual approach, primarily if a company uses different marketing forms and multiple channels to reach the target customers.

6) Flexible personification

People form impressions of other people in an instant. It only takes one look to conclude that someone is probably smart, clumsy, ignorant, or modest. If a company wants to personify its brand, it can be challenging. It is often achieved with different marketing messages and tones.

Colorful characters facilitate personification. In the end, it’s humans who are illustrated. Experienced illustrators and designers can deliver colorful characters that provoke target emotions and inspire favorable conclusions in target customers.

Want to capture a feminine charm? No problem, a few nostalgic elements, pronounced eyelashes, and bright colors, and there it is. Do you need an aggressive character? Give them a raised eyebrow, a smile, and an energetic posture, and there it is. 

7) Improved UI

Colorful characters have been assisting companies in delivering a more engaging and intuitive user interface for decades now. Can’t think of one? Remember Microsoft Office Clipper Assistant? That’s a perfect example.

A colorful character can be easily incorporated in a UI, whether it is a mobile app, live chat, or form on a website. It can change the posture to reflect the current use case. The goal is to deliver improved UI. One that’s engaging, and that makes users come for more. If anything, it will make the experience memorable. Did you remember the Clipper assistant? It was introduced 23 years ago.

Conclusion

These were the seven best things about colorful characters of illustration design. As you can see, they bring many benefits and can be used to support long-term branding efforts across the board. If you don’t have an inhouse illustrator or designer, you can use illustration design services to get your own custom-tailored and professionally designed colorful character.