If you need a break from AI, vibe coding and are ready for a somewhat unfiltered deep dive, you're in the right place.
Let’s commence
Ever wondered how small brands (with even smaller budgets) could keep illustrations coming while holding on to a sense of craft? I’m not talking about the sanitised SaaS look that’s been saturating tech since the mid-2000s and definitely not the AI posters that feel like low-budget Hollywood knockoffs. I mean hand-drawn work.
Btw-nothing against tacky movies or their posters. I find myself quite regularly devouring B- or C-movies while munching on some popcorn. Yes, call me old.
Back to the point, those brands are hard to get by, only a few come to mind. Think Notion, Cosmos, Monument Vally... you get my drift. For Pinch, a digital product with craft as one of their core values, I wanted illustrations in that spirit: tactile, textural, with real character in the details. Something you want to touch. Something that almost feels like a painting, maybe even something you’d frame and hang above the stove.
So my quest began. I’ll walk you through the process step by step. To be honest, it’s not rocket science, but it might spark some inspiration for your next illustration or brand project. Here goes.
Some scrolling through Instagram, Pinterest and Cosmos quickly led me to some fun but somewhat unfulfilling results. I mostly found sketchy line drawings or outlines. This could work, but was not exactly what I was looking for. Painting remember, I needed something more substantial, and I realised I wanted something with some colour.
I changed my angle and ended up obsessing over some ceramics and hand carved kitchen utensils. Randomly, through some Instagram doom scrolling, I came across the beautiful art from Allessandra Taccia, Klaas Gubbels, William Scott and a few more, short after that the vision was set. The vision was simple, mimicking a minimal table set up with warm soft colors, simple shapes and textures.
Before writing any line of code, I needed to think of these illustrations as a system. So, I broke the table set up down into component groups: