I.

Challenge

Industry Dive is a business journalism publisher that covers news in over 20 professional industries. Our design team includes several designers, each with their own illustration style. As we create graphics and illustrations for our news stories, they need to be reflective of our high quality journalism, and incite brand recognition for our readers. Here presented the challenge – how could we unite the designers’ styles under a strongly unified brand?

II.

Goal

Improve brand recognition by creating a signature style for our editorial illustrations across our diverse set of publications

III.

Process 

We decided the best way forward was to create a comprehensive illustration style guide based on the principles of our brand. The style guide would give us the requisite building blocks to make unique, yet cohesive, illustrations that screamed “Industry Dive!” The lowest effort, highest impact solution was a designated color palette. So, we embarked on an extensive exploration of color combinations that could invoke professionalism and uniqueness. Below are some of our favorite options.

IV.

Result

Out of all the options, there was one set of colors that stood out. Indigo paired well with Dive Red in all of its lighter tints and darker shades, giving us a lot of flexibility to make different illustrations. It worked for a full range of skin tones without some looking more realistic than others. From there, we developed a strategic use of color: employ small amounts of Dive Red against a palette of indigo to direct the attention of the viewer to specific parts of an illustration.

Our editorial illustration palette of indigo and red is now used across all Industry Dive illustrations, graphics and ads. No matter what the use case or designer, our art is cohesive and distinct from our competitors.