
Have you ever come across websites with attention-grabbing illustrations and wished your brand had that kind of impact? With custom illustrations booming in recent years, using them for branding and marketing is a smart strategy. If you aren’t familiar with what a custom illustration design service can do for your brand, we’re here to show you how.
Building Your Identity
If you have custom illustrations, you will have distinct graphics unique only to your brand. That’s why you need not only to stand out but connect with your audience.
Plus, since illustrations are part of your branding, it would be a waste if you use it in only one channel or purpose. After all, you want to connect with your audience through illustrations and brand story. Venngage found that bespoke illustrations performed better than other types of visuals. By integrating your illustrations everywhere, not only will you establish your identity, but you can also get recognized everywhere. It then becomes a win for your brand.
Telling Your Brand Story

As of 2024, there are 5.5 billion internet users worldwide and over 26.2 million ecommerce sites all over the globe. That’s how infinitesimal your business will be if you make little effort in differentiating yourself from the crowd.
With that much content bombarding us every day, businesses are thinking of ways to fight for customer attention. And as Forbes declares brand storytelling as necessary, it asserts that companies should be unforgettable in a sea of sameness.
Aside from that, you can simplify processes that others might not understand through text when you’re telling a story through illustrations. You can visualize certain concepts and make them more enticing for the audience, which could hook them to take action.
Stories Through Custom Illustration

Telling your brand story can become more effective through the use of custom illustrations. We all grew up reading children’s books that are filled with beautiful illustrations. There’s a reason for that. We humans, are visual creatures and can process images 60,000 times better than text.
This is more than enough proof that telling your brand story correlates well with custom illustrations. People will respond better to your marketing and web visuals if you include illustrations created specifically for your brand. A part of you may be saying that’s what stock graphics are for. It’s not, here are the reasons why:
Difference Between Custom Illustrations and Stock Graphics
Stock graphics are there for a reason and purpose. It can help you have images that are quick, easy, and inexpensive. While you can get some of them free of charge, you will mostly need to get a license to use them.
They are easily accessible to anyone on the internet, which means any business owner can use them as well. If standing out from the crowd is your objective, stock graphics won’t help you do that. Sharing the same stock graphics with your competition is an undesirable concept.
On the other hand, custom illustrations can give you the upper hand. Custom illustrations are a more interpretative form of imagery. They are specially created for your brand with your specifications. This is what makes them unique when images are made distinctively for you and no one else.
Here are a few examples of Penji’s custom illustrations showing how exclusive custom illustrations are:

Amazing Web Visuals with Custom Illustrations
A Nielsen Group study shows that majority of people decide if they want to stay on your website within the first 10-20 seconds of viewing. So once they land on your site, give them something beautiful and exciting to look at. Not stock images that they have already seen somewhere else.
Let’s look at a few brands that use custom illustrations on their website and see how varied their uses are:
Atomic

Combining mystery and innovation in this semi-monochromatic custom illustration, Atomic‘s website is stunning. It is a mix of flat images and flawless gradients that looks great with its animation. The site is filled with these custom illustrations, scrolling and navigating around is engaging and enjoyable.
A Map of Myth, Legend & Folklore

The English heritage website, A Map of Myth, Legend & Folklore, uses custom illustrations in lieu of Google maps. The website shows historic sites within England and along with animated clouds, seas, and birds. The illustrations add to the enigma surrounding the history of the country as well as making its study more engrossing.
Inside Intercom

Throughout the website and even their blogs, Inside Intercom uses semi-abstract figurative illustrations. They are strikingly appealing with its vibrant and contrasting colors. These images are good at creating recall for the brand, help express the company’s opinions, and make the website more stimulating.
Casper

Typically, illustrations are on landing pages, web pages, or blog cover images. But Casper uses illustrations on another part of their website, their reviews. It’s rare to see them, but Casper makes it work. Most websites would use only the reviewer’s name and what they have to say about the products. It gives the reviewers a sense of personality and sees how Casper has affected their lives.
Oscar

If you want to attract your target audience to use your product or service, custom illustrations like this one from Oscar could do just the trick. And by using somewhat realistic illustrations, you can connect with your target market. Plus, they also posted relevant illustrations to show how their products work. This will help the target audience know what to expect by subscribing to their plans or using their app.
MailChimp

Sometimes, custom illustrations don’t have to explain processes or represent the audience or company. If you want to stand out from competitors, you might have to think outside of the box like MailChimp. Apart from posting illustrations that may divert from the content or text, they have a distinctive style that will get them recognized anywhere. While they have already upgraded their web design, this snapshot of their previous one is an excellent example of what a custom illustration design service can do for your brand.
Effective Marketing with Custom Illustrations
We’ve seen from the examples above how custom illustrations can do wonders for your web visuals. Let’s now take a look at how it can do the same for your marketing strategies.
Ford

Custom illustrations were commissioned for Ford Greece‘s Ford Fiesta with Keyless technology. The illustrations are of people shaped like keys. It shows how you are the key as long as you have the actual keys anywhere on your body. The images are eye-catching, and you instantly have an idea of what the brand wants to convey.
KitchenAid

To show how long they’ve been in the business, KitchenAid commissioned different artists to create custom illustrations for their ad campaign. The idea is to create an artwork inspired by artists whose works represent their periods. The example above was inspired by the works of iconic painter Salvador Dali.
Ministério Público do Trabalho

Brazil’s Ministério Público do Trabalho (Public Ministry of Labor) used custom illustrations to show what stock graphics can’t. The campaign wants to relay the importance of having a “guardian angel” at work—using safety equipment. The custom illustrations perfectly convey the website’s message more than any other media can.
Bear

Many companies use illustrations for branding purposes. This one from Bear used their white bear mascot in most of their social media posts and blog image covers. They demonstrated the white bear teaching users some shortcuts and techniques as they use the app. Sometimes, the white bear was shown celebrating a specific holiday.
Moonworkers

Tubik Studio produced custom illustrations for Moonworkers, an app for those who work in the movie industry. According to Tubik Studio, Moonworkers wanted illustrations to demonstrate how the products work. And they even wanted references from old movies too. This will help make them stand out from other HR and talent software. Also, it helps establish a connection with their target audience.
Penji’s Custom Illustrations
The examples above show the many different ways custom illustrations can level up your web visuals and marketing strategies. They can speak to your customers in so many ways that stock graphics or photography can’t. They can provide interest that grabs attention to help you stand loud and proud among your competitors.
But the question is, are custom illustration design services affordable and accessible? With Penji, they are. With our flat monthly rates, you can submit all the custom illustration requests as you want.
Our plans allow you to request for custom illustrations and other graphic design assets. Other graphic design services will ask you to subscribe to a custom illustration plan, which means you have to pay more.
Final Thoughts
There’s no doubt that custom illustrations do so much to make your website and marketing materials as amazing as it can be. And with Penji, you can have all the custom illustrations you want and need without spending too much. With this idea, you won’t have to resort to using stock photos or illustrations that can look the same as everyone else’s. View our quick demo video today.
That’s why you should consider subscribing to Penji. You will receive designs unique to your brand. Not only can you request custom illustrations, but you can also submit design project requests for website and app designs, infographics, marketing, and branding visuals, and so much more! That’s all covered in Penji’s website design service! Sign up today, and try the platform risk-free for 30 days!
About the author

Celeste Zosimo
Celeste is a former traditional animator and now an SEO content writer specializing in graphic design and marketing topics. When she's not writing or ranking her articles, she's being bossed around by her cat and two dogs.
Table of Contents
- Building Your Identity
- Extend Your Creative Team the Affordable Way
- Telling Your Brand Story
- Stories Through Custom Illustration
- Difference Between Custom Illustrations and Stock Graphics
- Amazing Web Visuals with Custom Illustrations
- Effective Marketing with Custom Illustrations
- Penji’s Custom Illustrations
- Final Thoughts