Think of all the places you’ve encountered illustration. Images of graphic

想想您遇到的所有插图。 图形图像

可能会想到 New Yorker covers, whimsical children’s books, or artisanal liquor labels might come to mind. In recent years, you may have noticed that technology brands have joined the game, adopting illustration as part of their visual identity. 《纽约客》封面，异想天开的儿童读物或手工酒标。 近年来，您可能已经注意到技术品牌加入了游戏，将插图作为其视觉识别的一部分。

A few key players — Dropbox, Mailchimp, Salesforce — have dared to venture out from the ordinary. They believed that a brand didn’t have to be dry to prove its credibility. They didn’t want to limit themselves to technical infographics, lifeless icons, and generic stock photos. Instead, they knew that in order to connect with people, tech needs to be approachable, with fun characters and illustrative narratives. And it worked. Now, it’s not uncommon for you to find happy creatures and silly drawings when you open up an app. Recently, I burst into laughter when a unicorn flew across my screen after I had checked off a to-do item in Asana.

一些主要参与者-Dropbox，Mailchimp和Salesforce-敢于与众不同。 他们认为，一个品牌不必为了证明其信誉而枯燥。 他们不想将自己局限于技术图表，毫无生气的图标和普通的库存照片。 相反，他们知道，为了与人建立联系，技术必须具有平易近人，有趣的人物和生动的叙述方式。 而且有效。 现在，当您打开一个应用程序时，找到快乐的动物和愚蠢的图画并不少见。 最近，当我检查了Asana上的待办事项后，当麒麟飞过屏幕时，我大笑起来。

So why have tech brands turned to illustration? Well, in an industry that’s all about cold productivity and robotic efficiency, illustration offers a warm, human touch. Its expressive nature gives personality to a brand. As a user interacts with this personality, they develop a trusting relationship with the brand. When it comes to communicating complex concepts like blockchain, the cloud, or omnichannel, illustration engages the power of visual metaphors to transform abstract ideas into tangible forms, communicating more effectively than the typical stock photos of people on devices. Illustration is a powerful communication tool that can create a strong connection with an audience, build brand loyalty, and, ultimately, be a differentiator.

那么，为什么科技品牌转向插图？ 好吧，在一个与冷生产力和机器人效率有关的行业中，插图提供了温暖，人性化的感觉。 它的表现力赋予品牌个性。 当用户与这种个性互动时，他们与品牌建立了信任关系。 在交流诸如区块链，云或全渠道之类的复杂概念时，插图利用视觉隐喻的力量将抽象的思想转化为有形的形式，与设备上的典型人物照片相比，交流更为有效。 插图是一种强大的沟通工具，可以与受众建立牢固的联系，建立品牌忠诚度，并最终成为与众不同的地方。

However, with the recent widespread use of illustrations in tech, there’s a differentiation plateau because everyone’s starting to do the same thing. Online creative marketplaces like Freepik and creative galleries like Dribbble also fuel this homogeneous aesthetic. The factory-style, cookie-cutter illustrations we see in tech nowadays are typically vectorized human figures, sometimes with disproportionate or geometric bodies. They’re usually floating in a contained scene with a blobby background or placed on an isometric grid. Khoi Vinh, principal designer at Adobe, has even curated a Pinterest board of these “monoculture illustrations” and described the aesthetic as follows:

但是，随着插图在技术中的广泛使用，出现了差异化高原，因为每个人都开始做同一件事。 Freepik等在线创意市场和Dribbble等创意画廊也为这种同质美学注入了活力 。 如今，我们在高科技中看到的工厂风格，千篇一律的插图通常是矢量化的人物，有时带有不成比例的或几何形状的人体。 它们通常漂浮在带有粗糙背景的封闭场景中，或放置在等距网格上。 Adobe的首席设计师Khoi Vinh甚至在Pinterest董事会上策划了这些“ 单一文化插图 ”，并将其美学描述如下：

“The colors range from primary to bright pastels; the figures are cleanly drawn and almost always rendered with vectors; the details are highly abstracted and shading is geometric if it appears at all; the compositions are generally minimal and only occasionally feature very limited background elements.”

“颜色范围从原色到鲜艳的蜡笔； 人物画得干净利落，几乎总是用矢量绘制； 细节高度抽象，阴影完全是几何形状； 构图通常很小，仅偶尔具有非常有限的背景元素。”

Still, this is an exciting time for illustration, branding, and design. Except now, just having illustration is not enough. The blobby shapes, random dot textures, and vector people will look like every other app to the common user.

尽管如此，这仍然是插图，品牌和设计令人兴奋的时刻。 除了现在，仅凭插图还不够。 对于普通用户而言，粗大的形状，随机的点纹理和矢量人物看起来就像其他应用程序一样。

To stand out, tech brands need to approach illustration with a unique perspective and element of the hand. In a market saturated with vector drawings, Mailchimp recently launched a rebrand and differentiated itself through intelligent illustrations. They got it right. Their strategy: represent concepts through witty, clever metaphors instead of using cliches. For example, “Connect your favorite tools” is artfully visualized with a mobile instead of the typical dots and lines. “Automate your busy work” is represented by a Newton’s cradle rather than your typical circle of arrows.

为了脱颖而出，高科技品牌需要以独特的视角和手感来逼近插图。 在充满矢量绘图的市场中，Mailchimp最近启动了品牌重塑并通过智能插图与众不同。 他们说对了。 他们的策略：通过机智，巧妙的隐喻来表达概念，而不是使用陈词滥调。 例如，使用移动设备(而非典型的点和线)巧妙地显示了“连接您喜欢的工具”。 用牛顿的Gradle而不是典型的箭头圈来表示“自动化忙碌的工作”。

This must sound backward to many B2B tech brands and marketers because they typically assume that the best way to communicate with their busy audience is to be explicit and direct. Sure, there’s a time and place for purely efficient design, such as navigational signs in hospitals or icon labels for an organization system. But by using shrewd images that respect the viewer’s intelligence, brands can engage their audience, inviting them to complete the picture and have an aha moment.

这对于许多B2B技术品牌和营销商而言，应该是倒退的，因为他们通常认为与忙碌的受众进行交流的最佳方法是明确而直接。 当然，纯粹高效的设计存在时间和地点，例如医院的导航标志或组织系统的图标标签。 但是，通过使用尊重观看者智慧的精巧图像，品牌可以吸引他们的观众，邀请他们完成图片，并获得令人兴奋的时刻。

Think about it in the context of interactions with real people. Would you rather talk to someone who only shares facts and asks you direct questions? Or would you rather talk to someone who also shares stories and jokes with you?

在与真实的人互动的背景下考虑它。 您是否愿意与只分享事实并直接问您问题的人交谈？ 还是您想和也与您分享故事和笑话的人交谈？

Another company creating stirring work with illustration is Intercom. Its unique style experiments with rough edges, patterned collage, and imperfect shapes. In contrast to crisp circles and clean vectors — obviously designed in Adobe Illustrator — one could imagine an Intercom designer drawing with markers, tearing patterned papers, and composing each piece by hand. This element of the hand in their illustration work is what gives it a sense of humanity and personality, the main quality that attracted tech brands to illustration in the first place.

对讲机是另一家通过插图进行创作的公司。 其独特的风格尝试了粗糙的边缘，图案拼贴和不完美的形状。 与清晰的圆圈和干净的矢量(显然是在Adobe Illustrator中设计的)形成对比，人们可以想象对讲机设计师使用标记进行绘图，撕下带图案的纸张并用手组成每块。 手在插图作品中的这一元素是什么赋予它人性和个性感，这是吸引技术品牌首先使用插图的主要品质。

Mailchimp and Intercom are among the few tech brands that stick out in an ecosystem brimming with illustration. They do so by approaching illustration with a sophisticated perspective — avoiding your stereotypical motifs and opting for meaningful metaphors instead. And while everyone is drawing vector forms on the computer, they’re exploring methods with an element of the hand like collage, pencil sketches, and brushwork to establish a human connection. Though visual expression in tech has come a long way, brands will need to refine their unique perspective and human approach to illustration to stay competitive.

Mailchimp和Intercom是在生态系统中充满插图的少数几个高科技品牌之一。 他们通过以复杂的眼光看待插图来做到这一点-避免使用陈规定型的主题，而是选择有意义的隐喻。 当每个人都在计算机上绘制矢量形式时，他们正在探索使用手的元素(例如拼贴，铅笔素描和笔法)建立人脉关系的方法。 尽管技术中的视觉表达已经走了很长一段路，但品牌仍需要改进其独特的视角和人性化的插图制作方法，以保持竞争力。