7 Illustration Styles To Help Your Brand Stand Out

In branding, illustration style refers to the visual approach used to represent your brand through artwork—such as cartoon drawing, flat vector art, 3D illustration, and collage. It contributes to how your brand looks and feels, through packaging, ads, product design, educational materials, and more.

Your illustration style helps signal what type of brand you are: playful versus premium, modern versus traditional, simple versus technical. Using it across your website, packaging, and social media content can strengthen your brand positioning and the impression you want to create. 

This guide breaks down illustration styles, what each communicates, and how to apply them effectively to strengthen your branding.

7 illustration styles to shape your brand

• Comics and cartoon illustrations
• Flat vector art
• 3D illustration
• Collage
• Sketches and line drawings
• Hand-drawn or painted
• Printmaking

Most illustration work falls within recognizable styles shaped by broader art movements and traditions. While individual illustrators bring their own perspective, these different styles provide a shared visual language that brands can use to communicate a specific look and feel. 

Below are seven popular illustration styles and what they communicate:

Comics and cartoon illustrations

Comic and cartoon styles take cues from graphic novels, children’s books, comic books, and ligne claire (“clear line”), a style pioneered by Tintin comics artist Hergé. 

For example, Fishwife’s cartoon-style illustrations with bold, bright colors make a familiar product (canned fish) feel like the beginning of an exciting culinary journey. Mattress manufacturer Casper uses expressive characters in this style, creating an approachable, friendly brand identity. 

Common uses:

• Modernize a classic product

• Present complex or unfamiliar products in a more approachable way

Flat vector art

Defined by flat shapes, minimal details, and geometric forms, flat vector art creates a modern, clean, minimalist style. It is often associated with modern digital brands and trends like Corporate Memphis, which use simplified, stylized characters to communicate ideas quickly. 

Because vector files can scale up or down without losing quality, they are useful for brands that need consistent visuals across a wide range of formats and materials. Brands like Two Brothers organic farm and Juni adaptogenic tea use flat vector illustration to create packaging that translates well across digital and physical formats. 

Common uses: 

• Introduce new technology or innovations clearly and simply

• Scale illustrations across a variety of brand assets 

3D illustration

3D digital illustration uses depth, lighting, and perspective to create images in which objects appear to exist in real space. It calls to mind Pixar’s animation style and the fantasy illustrations of video games. These styles also adapt well to animation and short-form video.

To create these visuals, graphic designers begin with geometric shapes as the basic building blocks, then layer in detail to build depth and texture. In a digital illustration like Built’s protein bars ad, everyday objects can take on exaggerated or imaginative qualities—such as marshmallows wearing goggles and blue raspberries floating through the sky. 

Common uses: 

• Communicate a youthful and playful brand identity

• Create immersive or visually dynamic scenes

Collage 

Collage is created by cutting apart and recombining existing or original images and materials into something new, and is often used to depict abstract concepts. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque popularized the term in the early 1900s as part of the Cubist movement.

For brands like Tin Can and Chunks, this particular style draws on the look of a teenager’s moodboard or a wall of magazine cutouts, aligning with a younger target audience. 

You can also use collage to communicate multiple elements coming together to create a whole, as seen in Sober Spirits’ packaging, which uses the technique to illustrate flavor notes in its non-alcoholic liquor. 

Common uses: 

• Illustrate a mix of flavors, textures, or ideas

• Make stock or sourced imagery more distinctive

Sketches and line drawings

With their rough lines and intricate details, sketches feel distinctly analog and artsy. Whether rendered in black and white or with limited color, line drawings feel Old World, classic, and sophisticated. 

For example, Fishs Eddy, a dishware shop that’s a staple of New York’s Flatiron District, uses illustrator Hillary Bott Sorrentino’s New York Toile across dishes, towels, and tote bags. The pattern reflects the brand’s classic New York City identity.

Line art doesn’t always have to feel hand-sketched. Isometric line drawings, which show multiple sides of an object at once, are a useful approach to scientific or technical information. Icons with clean lines, like those used on the Faherty website, can call attention to important fine print and company policies.

Common uses: 

• Present processes or technical information

• Reinforce a classic or old-world brand aesthetic

• Highlight important details or fine print

Packaging design for Sober Spirits featuring collage artwork.

Hand-drawn or painted

Hand-drawn and painted styles emphasize texture and detail, often creating a more tactile, physical feel compared to digital styles. 

For example, Diaspora Spice Co. and Rifle Paper Co. use illustration styles that incorporate visible brushstrokes, ink, and texture. These details reflect the materials and surfaces of the products themselves, such as the fine grain of a spice blend or the sheen of a glazed plate.

Common uses: 

• Reinforce a sensory product experience

• Position a brand as artisanal or premium

Printmaking

Printmaking is a broad art form that includes many types of illustrations in which ink is applied to a surface using a press, stamp, or similar process.

Many digital tools also simulate these effects, allowing designers to create seemingly vintage illustrations without traditional printing methods. In examples from Island Creek Oysters, Stumptown Coffee, and Bathing Culture, printmaking contributes to a retro aesthetic that is often associated with nostalgia-inspired branding.

Common uses: 

• Create a retro or vintage-inspired brand aesthetic

• Add texture and character to otherwise simple designs

Tips for incorporating illustration into your branding

• Develop a relationship with your illustrator
• Match the style to your product
• Use illustration to educate
• Know what to illustrate
• Stay consistent and organized

Illustrations can serve many purposes, from guiding product use to shaping your brand personality. Here’s how to incorporate modern illustration techniques into your branding:

Develop a relationship with your illustrator 

Working closely with an illustrator helps align their work with your brand. This is especially important for a distinct style like cartoon or hand-drawn illustration, where consistency and originality define the brand.

For example, Fishwife cofounder Becca Millstein shares on the Shopify Masters podcast how she works closely with illustrator Danny Miller to continually evolve the brand’s aesthetic. This approach keeps the visuals from feeling stale while ensuring each rollout stays consistent with the overall brand. 

Match the style to your product 

Different illustration styles are often associated with different moods, whether used in marketing or applied directly to products. For example, a cartoon style like Fishwife’s might not be a good fit for a sleek tech tool or luxury skin care line, while a flat vector style might feel too minimal or generic for a brand focused on craftsmanship. 

That said, using an unexpected style within an industry can also help a brand stand out. For example, Good Girl Snacks cofounder Leah Marcus says on Shopify Masters that they chose the doodles used in the company’s branding to reflect the flavors and create a fun, colorful identity that departs from traditional pickle jar branding. 

A creative director, freelance graphic designer, or design agency (like those found through the Shopify partner network) can help create a distinctive illustration style that works best for your brand. 

Use illustration to educate 

Illustration can serve a functional purpose by depicting what photographs can’t. Line drawings or flat vector illustrations, for example, can help simplify complex ideas.

Diaspora Spice Co. founder Sana Javeri Kadri says the brand uses illustration to illuminate the difference between the mass-market spice supply chains and its farm-to-table approach. On its About Us page, the brand has two sets of illustrations, one demonstrating the traditional model, where customers receive spices two to seven years after production, and the other demonstrating Diaspora’s model, where customers receive fresh products within 12 months of production. 

On an episode of Shopify Masters, Sana explains the importance of illustrations to its brand storytelling. “[I was constantly asking], how can I tell a complex story in as accessible and visual a way as possible? And even before I had an operations manager, we had a freelance, uh, graphic designer and illustrator that we were working with because I knew that the easiest way to make things digestible is to draw it,” she says. 

Know what to illustrate

Illustrations can create contrast, draw attention to important details, and bring abstract concepts into focus in tandem with the rest of your brand. Even brands like Diaspora Spice Co., which use illustrations across touchpoints, combine illustration with photography and digital design elements. 

Illustrations don’t typically replace visuals that a customer needs to see clearly, like how clothing fits or what a product looks like. Consider using illustration alongside photography to support or highlight important information.

Stay consistent and organized

Once you’ve chosen an illustration style, sticking to it helps reinforce brand recognition. If illustrations become part of your visual language—for example, a chili pepper to indicate spice or a cake to represent a store opening—using them consistently wherever that concept appears can help your customers quickly recognize what each visual element represents. 

Shopify’s built-in tools can help you keep brand assets like logos and illustrations organized.