Illustrations have the power of boosting a website’s design. These Web illustrations are most successful when they match current trends. By utilizing current trend illustrations in your Web design, you will show that your company is forward thinking and current.

Here are 10 new trend illustrations in Web design that your company can incorporate into your current design.

Animals

Whether realistic or whimsical in design, humans are attracted to animals. Many animals have characteristics and traits that humans readily identify. By matching an animal with your company, you’re able to communicate a strong message about your company’s values and traits.

Bright Color

These days, Web illustrators are incorporating bright, bold colors in their designs. Before choosing your colors, take a couple of minutes to research the psychology behind colors and choose those that best match the message that you’re trying to convey.

Characters

Companies have been creating characters to help depict their organization and draw customers in. These characters often can be incorporated into long term branding of the company so clients have a strong emotional connection to that brand every time the character appears in marketing materials.

Clouds

Possibly due to the popularity of Twitter, clouds are starting to sprout up in Web designs. Clouds communicate brightness, airiness and simplicity.

Focus on Footers

Footers contain quite a bit of company information. It’s an important element of your website, so why not incorporate some design elements? Companies are utilizing the space to add illustrations that communicate their brand to website visitors. The footer is often the last element that a person will see, so why not leave them with a lasting impression?

Humor

Everyone loves a good laugh. Utilizing humor in your Web design will help make your site memorable. It will also help increase your traffic because customers will share the site with others to see how it tickles their funny bones.

Landscapes

Landscapes are natural elements that add color and beauty to a website. In a medium where grey, black and white often take center stage, it’s refreshing to have colorful, organic elements brightening up the designs.

Larger Logos

Splash pages have been on the decline in recent years. But companies can continue to have that large graphic impact by increasing the size of their logos. By adding in graphic and illustration elements to the logos, they can transition into art instead of a stale logo. The larger logo will also help communicate more about the overall brand

Simplicity

It’s time to clear out the clutter. It’s hard to process all of the information on the Web when websites are jam-packed with various design elements. White space helps consumers breath and take in the information that you are displaying for them to see.

White

Web illustrators have been utilizing white to brighten up other colors and de-clutter their designs. This trend is best achieved by finding creative and unique ways to utilize white, such as through the cloud trend.

Daniela blogs for CreditDonkey, a free tool that allows you to easily compare credit card offers. She’s also looking for suggestions on how to redesign CreditDonkey – email her at daniela.baker@creditdonkey.com

Here are some great examples and inspirations you can use to add that touch of red to your logo:

Pathos

Natasha Balabanova

Threesome

Chariot

ABC Promo

PixelLove

LoveClip

Sushi

I Heart Mustache

Heartry

Mariolle Beauty Studio

Colors of Japan

Delice Sweets

Peppeta

Cissili

Cristina

Restaurant Argentino

ShopSoy

Ketchup

Café Unplugged

Love Idea

Chili Africa

Storybook Kitchen

Cards for Care

Poker Bliss

Which logo was your favorite?

A module is a small space on a page dedicated to a specific subject. It is often related to he page it is on, but has its own characteristics — kind of like a sidebar. Are you and your yearbook staff out of ideas? At times it can be difficult to come up with fresh new ideas, and I understand. It’s hard for me too! Try some of the modules on this list for your book!

1: Poll on Sidebar

For a Student Life page, take a poll of a good amount of students on a topic related to the page. If your spread is on Technology, try taking a poll asking students which iPod they prefer – Nano, Shuffle, iTouch, etc. See if you can get 20-30 students. Or to make it easier to calculate, get 25 responses and multiply each number of votes time four to get the percentage. Otherwise you could just show a bar graph.

2: People Matching

Take awkward pictures of random people and make a ‘matching’ game out of it. For example, align and crop the pictures to the same size and number each picture. Below the row of pictures, have the names of the people with a letter next to it. so your pictures would be ’1, 2, 3, 4′ and corresponding names would be ‘A, B, C, D’. On the bottom of the page, upside-down write the answers!

3: Student Profile

Are there any successful and talented students in your school? Showcase them! Dedicate a small area to 2-3 sentences of copy and a small photo. You can repeat this module about 10 times in your book!

4: ‘Anatomy of A’…

This module would work really well on sports pages. Take an action shot of a player. Try to get the whole body of the person because you will be cutting them out. (In Photoshop, removing the entire background and keeping the person) Place the cutout on the page and give it a cutesy title. For example, lets say that you have a football player. Try naming your module, ‘Anatomy of a Football Star’. Then, add lines pointing to parts of their body. Interview them and ask them questions like, ‘Do you wear special shoes? Give us some thoughts about your helmet‘ and use those for your lines!

5: Graph / Chart

Yearbooks can bring instant reader interaction with a chart or graph! I covered a poll in #1, but this is different. Collect statistics as you gather information for your pages. Are you interviewing a coach? Don’t forget to ask him for wins and loses for the season. You can then turn that into a really cute chart! This works for more than just sports. Try test scores, averages, polls, and different kinds of graphs.

6: Fun facts

In addition to graphs and charts, try adding fun facts! These can be just a box with a sentence in it. I created a quick example, which can be seen to the right. It probably took me a good 10 minutes to create, and you would be able to do so just as easily. My suggestion would be to create the background (the green part) and just add text on top (in InDesign, or whatever program your school uses).

7: Collage

Make a mini collage from some filler photos. You could make them look like Polaroids, or just place them directly next to each other. These could be members of a team or club. This way you can get many more people on a page without wasting so much space!

8: Teacher Spotlight

Shine a light on an inspiring teacher. This could even be your teacher of the year, but it could be anyone! There are usually a handful of teachers that really stand out, so try recognizing them in your yearbook.

9: Funny Photos

If you have been on a yearbook staff for some time, then you have probably seen the mirage of funny photos kids (and teachers!) take. Most of the time we see them in picture day photos of seniors, because they only get their senior photos in the book. You can use some of these funny photos in a small module here and there!

10: Spotlight Quote

Use an inspiring quote from your teacher, principal or fellow student and feature it! I’m thinking something similar to the fun fact box above. A small, unobtrusive module! It could even go next to their photo or on a relevant page.

That’s all folks! I hope you and your staff were able to learn something from this. Did you use any of these tips? Comment below and let us know how!

From the Official Post:

In times of stress, we need something to lift our spirits. Honeysuckle is a captivating, stimulating color that gets the adrenaline going – perfect to ward off the blues,” explains Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Honeysuckle derives its positive qualities from a powerful bond to its mother color red, the most physical, viscerally alive hue in the spectrum.

Check out Honeysuckle in the wild!

So, what are your thoughts on the color of the year? Love it? Hate it?

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If you have a blog or website, chances are either you update too much, or hardly none at all. School and other activities are important. They help balance out our lives, but how can you make time for everything? School, sports, a blog, a new hobby? It’s simple really.

Usually while in school, or at the beginning of my day, I make a list. This list consists of the activities I need to complete by the end of the day. I also have a list for what I need to complete in that week. By seeing all of the tasks I need to complete side by side, I can order them by importance.

I try to do the items on my list pertaining to school first, like homework, because it’s most important. It also gives me a drive to not slack off, because I get to look forward to the things I like doing later, like blogging or designing.

If I don’t have to do any school work, I do the things that are small and take the least time first, like responding to emails, etc. When it comes to working on my websites, I try to set small goals for myself. I like to accomplish at least something each day, so that I don’t end up abandoning anything. Even five minutes to write a blog, or respond to comments count.

Because every person is different, you can alter this process to fit your needs.

I like to organize my lists and agenda in my moleskine. It keeps all my important information and organizes my life at the same time. As for staying productive, I try not to stay on social networks/email for too long, it just totally brings my productivity level way down.

Anyone got any tips to share?

Picture Credits