Illustration Is Not a Default: Choosing a Style That Serves the Story

Illustration has a far longer history than most visual communication formats. Cave drawings of hand silhouettes found in Spain are estimated to be over 66,000 years old. After the internet arrived around 1997, illustration gained renewed traction, with well-known examples including Google’s daily doodles and the cartoon artwork used in Red Bull’s marketing. What was once produced with pencils, chalk, pens, etchings, and paints can now be done in analog, digital, or mixed media forms.

Photography is a common visual default, but it is not always the most effective. Illustration offers a wider stylistic range and can create a mood or bring abstract concepts and text to life. Good illustrations can present information more effectively than text, numbers, or tables alone.

Selecting the right style means answering several questions: What does the content need? How will the style reflect the corporate identity? What will the target audience prefer? Illustration choices also need to account for the intended age range, since different audiences have different physical, cognitive, educational, and resource considerations.

Several qualities define effective illustration:

  • It visualises something described or referenced in the content, especially what is abstract or does not otherwise have a visual form.
  • It is aesthetically pleasing and stimulating, with harmony between colour, elements, proportions, and subject matter.
  • It carries a feel, mood, dramatic edge, or attitude that creates an environment.
  • It enhances and illuminates the surrounding text so readers understand the content better.

Audience categories matter as much as style. Common distinctions include children, teenagers, middle-aged and ageing audiences, as well as preference for particular styles, such as goth, retro, modern, old-fashioned, sporty, or branded. The example styles below show how different illustration approaches communicate distinct qualities and affect tone.

Style Profiles: What Each Approach Communicates

Watercolour

Suits formal, classy, and sophisticated imagery with room for imaginative expression. Its texture and light create a humane and personal feel that software alone does not easily achieve.

Strengths: Feeling, emotion, depth, and texture.

Drawing with Real-life Objects

Works well for highly abstract concepts and compositions with a funny, unusual, or unreal aspect. The style allows striking and clever engagement with content.

Strengths: Conceptual play.

Surreal Photomontage

Suitable for abstract hybrid and photo illustration with a surreal fantasy aspect. Merging different imagery can create dramatic, striking new visuals, as seen in music-related artwork.

Strengths: Conceptual mixing and merging that produces new unseen imagery.

Cartoon

Good for humour and wit, enabling new messages and communication forms with cleverness.

Strengths: Conceptual approach.

Cartoon with Block Colour

Similar to cartoon but with simplicity that helps people who struggle with advanced imagery concepts. This makes it quite accessible.

Strengths: Simplicity and unclutteredness.

Clean Vector

Designed for clean, clear, all-encompassing, and durable visuals. Its neutrality works well for a wide range of viewers without leaning heavily into one stylistic direction.

Strengths: Realism, conceptual flexibility, and broad appeal.

Textured Vintage Clean Vector

Best used for rustic imagery with a vintage feel. Texture and intentional non-cleanliness enhance the overall impression, especially for Western old-fashioned themes.

Strengths: Aged feeling, rough impression.

Pictogram

Highly effective for clean, legible, quickly recognisable concepts, especially at small sizes. Common in fast-paced visual environments such as airports.

Strengths: Legibility and speed of comprehension, supporting accessibility.

Abstract Geometric

Offers visually attractive abstract imagery with plenty of room for customisation and experimentation, producing striking results.

Strengths: Visual stimulation and curiosity.

Lithography Etching

Ideal for evoking old, historic, and traditional imagery. The sketchy markings, etchings, and greyscale palette feel distant from software-generated visuals. It may also work in modern contexts as an unusual counterpoint.

Strengths: Realism and tradition.

3D Gradient

A strong fit for realistic imagery with a friendly, widely accessible character. Not overly stylistic, which helps it appeal across broader ranges of people.

Strengths: Broad acceptability and appropriateness.

Sci-fi Comic Book and Pop Art

Useful for bright, animated, colourful, and high-impact concepts. The bold, in-your-face approach promotes visual engagement, often with humorous results.

Strengths: Animation quality.

Tattoo

Well-suited for bold block-coloured silhouettes with noticeable detail. Works strongly in black and white, though colour can enhance it further.

Strengths: Directness and clarity.

Pencil

Good for humane, detailed imagery that conveys feeling and character. The sketchy style surfaces unusual details and imaginative scenes.

Strengths: Humane and detailed imaginative feeling.

Gradient

Especially useful for imaginative and fantasy imagery. The light-to-dark palette creates depth and gives the visuals a transportive quality.

Strengths: Fantasy through depth of colour, clean feel.

Charcoal

Conveys a humane, tangible feel reminiscent of historical illustrations. The murky black-and-white work carries a strong atmosphere.

Strengths: Humane and detailed feeling.

Woodcut

Delivers block silhouettes with presence, sharpness, and impact. Strong contrast alone communicates effectively without requiring colour.

Strengths: Striking and clear.

Fashion

Good for imagery with motion and flare, often with a feminine touch. The expressive lines and colours suit fashion illustration, resembling runway energy.

Strengths: Motion and expressive flare.

Caricature

Works well for humorous graphic imagery. Layered light and dark elements provide depth and show more detailed attention than a clean vector style typically does.

Strengths: Detail and humour.

Paint

Suitable for traditional romantic imagery with considerable detail, texture, and emotional depth. Subjects such as roses illustrate the level of colour and shading possible.

Strengths: Tradition and emotion.

Chalk

Fits sketchy visuals that suggest an idea or a working concept. White lines against black backgrounds create an almost animated effect, giving movement and life through simple linework.

Strengths: Hand-realised feel and animation quality.

Getting Started With Illustration

Tools range from traditional pencils, chalk, pens, etchings, and paints, which can be scanned in, to software such as Illustrator, Photoshop, Procreate, Corel Painter, Sketch, Inkscape, or Figma. The essential ingredient, regardless of tool, is having a clear vision and mindset for illustration.

Further references include the Association of Illustrators, Tom May’s article on 20 Best Illustration Agents In The UK, It’s Nice That, and Behance Illustration galleries.