Embracing outlines and creating a visual language that our consumers can understand and be delighted by, my exploration started by focusing on four unique styles. Drawing inspiration from The Simpsons to Pixel art, I allowed myself to play and explore any style that spoke to Veterans United's spirited personality.

Narrowing
it down

After the exploration ended, I focused on a style that featured heavy line work but allowed our signature bright blue to shine and add that extra punch to our illustrations. The popular debate among us designers was about dimension: should it be included at all, or should we keep everything flat? Why is it so hard to make dimension feel consistent within the various icons?

Where did
we end up?

At the end of the day, when you're working on a team of extremely talented and opinionated designers (I wouldn’t have it any other way), compromises will be made. We collaborated on the final iconography you see below, adding an additional spot of red to grab attention. We found that the smallest form of icons gains plenty of dimensionality from the use of light shadows. We worked together to create our own visual language.

Making rules so I can eventually break them <3

Rules, a necessary evil when creating an illustration system that will be used by various designers. We established standards on stroke width, color usage, perspective, and corner radius (just to name a few). We created something that can stand alone at its tiniest form (Min 16px; No larger than 36px) and enchants at its largest.

Now we are having fun!

One of my favorite parts of designing at VU has been the encouragement I have received to push the limits when it comes to illustrations (or 'illos' as we lovingly refer to them). Below, I have shared some of my favorites that I have created over the years.