Illustration. Uniquely Organic and More to Come

If you’ve paid much attention to commercial art design trends in the last 12 – 18 months, you may have noticed more retro, vintage styles and more hand-drawn illustrations; flawed and imperfect in a very refreshing and honest way.

This trend is going to continue to grow and perhaps give a greater value to artists, illustrations, and to the creative process in general. All of these have been devalued over the last four to eight years with the commodity drivers of sites like photos.com, 99designs.com and istockphoto.com, where even the most detailed and complex vectors, photographs and even videos are bought and sold for as low as $5 each. Sometimes less. The photographers who have invested years of workshops & thousands upon thousands in equipment and education have seen their business suffer and their work underappreciated. After all, why would you spend 3 weeks and $500 for a photo shoot and a series of photographs when you could spend $65 for a dozen images in an hour of perusing the web and a few download clicks? The same goes for talented painters and sketchers who see their commission work gobbled up by clichéd vectors for sale or rent.

The problem is the lack of originality and, ultimately for businesses and brands, differentiation. Six years ago I attended a college recruitment program where I saw the same exact image of a student on the cover of multiple brochures for different universities. Royalty-free is a beautiful thing, but it can make things difficult if you want to stand out from your competition. Would you hire the same spokesman that your direct competitor uses in her ads? No. Absolutely not. Then why would you use the same design element to represent your brand that your competitor can use…just as well as any auto-maker, bank, restaurant, hair product, and investment firm?

Something that can’t be overly duplicated is a hand-drawn illustration. Aside from the organic nature and aesthetic beauty, hand-drawn illustrations can give big businesses a piece of approachability and a lighter side to their otherwise distant, cold, corporate identity. It breathes a life of creativity and appears youthful. It shows appreciation for talent, raw and unpolished. And most importantly, it’s unique.

As more and more businesses adopt casual atmospheres and softer attitudes, I expect to see more styles like this. More websites have definitely showcased these illustrations, whether they reflect such attitudes or whether it’s simply reflecting the age of the businesses owners and developers, and the trend is strong to continue over the coming years. I have found that I am not alone in my theory. See Web Design Ledger's Web Design Trends for 2010. The motion picture, Juno, had an art direction and typography using this style much in the same light as Napoleon Dynamite from years back. This style looks similar to some teenage notebook scribble or doodle between home room and gym class, but with texture and depth interlaced with commercial goals and marketability.

Be on the look out for more corporate websites to release campaigns with themes using hand-drawn illustrations just as much as small businesses by young America. If you look closely, you may be able to see the marketing meetings taking place behind the sketch.

-Lance LaRue, Advertising & Creative Manager at Americom Marketing Ad Agency 2010