Illustration Design System Share: DPDK Score Awaiting client review n/a Date Published 12 March 2021 Reading Time 2-Minute Read An inclusive illustration design system that showcases and reflects our brand Challenge Create an illustration design system that is consistent, reflects our commitment to inclusivity, and builds brand recognition. Outcome An inclusive illustration design system that acts as a reference bank and provides a strong foundation for establishing brand consistency across all touchpoints. Impact The new illustration design system ensured that DPDK delivers consistent, unique, inclusive, and on-brand experiences. Strategy The idea of an illustration design system took root when we launched our blog. Sharing our stories regularly pushed us to ensure that our visual style consistently reflects our brand across all touchpoints. We started with basic graphic elements and simple characters. From there, we developed a rudimentary first version of the illustration design system and slowly evolved it to be more extensive. The new illustration design system enabled smoother collaboration across our design team, which in turn helped us quickly scale our outputs. The design system easily allowed our style to remain consistent and in line with our brand identity. Creative We started off with a few PDFs which have matured over time into a live library. These Adobe XD documents consist of a mix of patterns, brushes, components, shapes, illustration characters, and guidelines. When we started, we created everything on a white background. This led to a set of characters with mostly white skin tones. In an effort to manifest more inclusive designs, we evolved our characters into diverse figures with a range of skin colors, body shapes, fashionable outfits, and hairstyles. We established a set of guidelines to determine characters’ dimensions, proportions, skin tones, and how we wanted them to be perceived. We took inspiration from real-life photos as well as our own team and translated that imagery into our designs. Innovation didn’t stop once we built the library. We constantly expand and update the design system by having monthly retrospectives to assess the illustration design system and our diversity efforts.