Illustrating for brands : Tips for optimising your portfolio

What are Design and Art Directors looking for?

I’ve been working as a designer for brands for over 22 years. For the last chunk of that time, I have been Design Directing with a focus on packaging work. More recently, as a freelancer, I have moved across projects, across categories and across agencies as a Design Lead, crafting and building concepts and working within various teams. In both instances I have needed to research suitable illustrators to commission artwork for packaging. In the last 4 months, I’ve researched suitable illustrators to commission for an Ice Cream brand, a Confectionery brand looking to create Limited Editions for Easter and a Vegan Milk Brand. I’ve often been the Design lead who works directly with the illustrator, briefing in the project and directing the work through to final artwork.

Andrew Hudson illustrating for Popworks

Go-to topics to illustrate

My freelance projects focus on the FMCG sector, which means ‘Fast Moving Consumer Goods’. Industry terminology for Food, Drink and Groceries. When I’m looking through illustrator’s folios, I’m often searching for:

• Fruit and Veg as single ingredients

• Clusters of ingredients grouped together

• Patterns: decorative but also descriptive or narrative

• People interacting in a shared scene / setting / doing things (small people big scene). Example: Lots of people shopping in a department store.

• Close up on people interacting in shared scene (Close up on 2 or 3 people, with subtle cues to context shown to suggest a scene). Example: 2 people having coffee, with hints of a scene such as home environment suggested by elements in background.

• ‘Natural’ cues: foliage, flowers to denote scent or flavour of something

• Seasonal themes: Key world Holidays and festivals: Lunar new year, Halloween, Christmas ect

• Sporting events or specific activities: Olympics events, Winter sports such a skiing, Beach scenes, Tropical Jungles

• Hand lettering artists - always used extensivley on packaging work

Clearly, not an exhaustive list, I could go on!

Manjit Thapp illustrating for Eyelure London

Manjit Thapp illustrating for Byredo

Matching illustrators to Brands

Some of the considerations top of mind when I’m reviewing work:

• Are there enough examples of work in the portfolio to suggest the illustrator can adapt to the needs of the brief?

• Is the style of the work age appropriate for the brand I’m researching for? For example, alcohol brands might request bold, playful illustrations that disrupt at shelf. However, playful can sometimes appear too child-like, which would be in danger of appealing to under-age audiences. Conversley, a confectionery brand may have a very targeted age bracket for the product: Tweens and young adults for example. In this case we would need a style that would not appear too young in case it is seen to be childish or babyish. Can the illustrator capture character across different ages in an appropriate style?

• Is the brand a luxury, premium brand? Does the illustration serve to elevate the brand, or could it clash with the brand?

• Can the illustrator adapt their work to fit within a brand’s own colour palette if required?

• Would the style have impact on shelf when viewed at small scale? Context of the product matters: high-end boutique stores typically have more control of how their products are displayed. This gives more room for illustrations on pack to breathe, and be seen as ‘art’. In the context of a supermarket, the design needs to work hard to compete with the other packs in a visually noisy environment. Brands pay high margins for supermarkets to position their products at premium shelf levels in store. If the product is merchandised too low or too high, it has to work really hard to be seen. The illustration will need to serve as a key element to help increase visibility and cut through at shelf.

Hannah Warren illustrating for Fortnum & Masons

Optimise your portfolio

There are so many possible applications for illustration work for brands. Aside from consumer packaging (my area of expertise) think about restaurants, brand campaigns, store environments, live events. Illustration can work really hard for a brand, and plenty of illustration agents are specifically focussed on matching up illustrators and artists with brand driven briefs.

So, how could you tweak what you have to be more appealing to brand work?

Here are my recommendations for levelling up:

• Write a ‘dream brands’ list. WHICH brands would you LOVE to create work for?

• Write a ‘categories’ list. Example categories could be Luxury chocolate, Canned Drinks, tinned food (beautiful tinned sardines anyone?!) or even Dog Food, Premium fragrances, your favourite Jewellry designer…go wide with the list! A great place to start is your own home. Are there products you would love to redesign because they NEED it? Or is there a product or brand that you LOVE and would just enjoy making work for? Create moodboards, Pinterest boards, go shopping and imagine your artwork on items that you see.

• Consider audience and reach. A gorgeous tin of sardines for your auntie? Your Granny’s favourite biscuits? Your best friends’ favourite bottle of Gin? That hipster brand of dog food? It oftens helps to think of who you are designing for when you choose the ‘thing’ you’re illustrating.

Timorous Beasties illustrating for Johnnie Walker

Example mini-briefs for you to try straight away

Now take a look at what you love to draw.
For example: You love to draw florals and foliage.

• Example brief 1:
  Category: Premium Fragrance
  Project idea: Imagine a new scent has been launched. Define the new scent. Create the limited Edition outer box packaging and promotional poster featuring your illustration. Choose a fragrance brand that you’d love to see your work on.
  Jo Malone is a good example of a brand that often works with illustrations, Limited Editions and Seasonal releases.

• Example brief 2:
  Category: Bath and Personal Care.
  Project idea: Create a Seasonal Gift Box illustration celebrating a hero product, with a focus of bringing to life the ingredient story. Example brand: L’Occitane.

• Example brief 3:
  Category: Craft Coffee.
  Project idea: Invent an independant craft coffee brand, or find one you love. Design a Roast and Ground coffee bag celebrating the flavour notes of this coffee through your illustration.
  

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is not about making illustration work to FIT a brand. This is about re-framing the work you love to make, and placing it in the context of brand touchpoints to bring to life the possibilities of where your work can be seen.

I cannot stress this enough. I am spending my time freely creating, drawing, making - going with my inspirations and interests first and foremost. Only when I HAVE the work I love, do I think about where I might apply it.

Over to you:

• Have you been commissioned to work for a brand on products, or any aspect of brand communication?

• Would you like to see more brand work come your way but not sure where to start with your portfolio?

• Has this just opened up a bunch of questions in your head? Drop them in the comments!

This is the most ‘Design Director-y’ post I have written so far. I’m really passionate about illustration for brands and would love to dive deeper if you want to know more. I will create a series of posts focussing on the topic if the desire for it is out there! See you in the comments!

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Mentions:
Andrew Hudson
Manjit Thapp
Hannah Warren
Timorous Beasties