I prefer to assume that designers clear up issues, whereas artists ask questions. And when the 2 go hand-in-hand, actual magic occurs. Why? As a result of the appropriate query will get answered with the appropriate resolution — artwork asks, and design responds.
Right here at Automattic we had been extraordinarily lucky to lately get to accomplice with unbiased artist and designer Alice Lee, who seamlessly integrates summary concepts with concrete options. The next is an interview with Alice that’s adopted by one other interview with Joan Rho, the designer who led the venture.
JM: How did you turn into an illustrator?
AL: My path is a bit nontraditional. I used to be at all times an artistically curious child rising up, however was by no means of the “stand-out artwork star” selection. Somewhat, I went to enterprise faculty, and after graduating, I labored at Dropbox as an early product designer.
A few of my first few tasks there concerned designing for externally going through tasks (new consumer schooling, onboarding flows, residence & touchdown pages), and I discovered that including illustrations actually elevated my work — understandably, nobody needs to learn paragraphs of textual content describing file sharing. On the time, there weren’t any devoted full-time illustrators on the group, so I made a decision to simply do it myself, studying as a lot as attainable on the facet and receiving steering from teammates. Finally I transitioned over into model and communications design at Dropbox, working full-time as a product illustrator. I left to freelance virtually three years in the past and have been illustrating since!
JM: I’ve discovered that many individuals confuse an illustrator as somebody who’s “good at drawing.” I’ve discovered that description to be terribly narrow-minded. Something so as to add?
AL: That’s a very fascinating query as a result of it describes two key qualities to being an illustrator. The primary is the technical means to attract — one doesn’t essentially must be the “second coming of artwork,” however it is very important possess a basis in fundamental draftsmanship. The second is the conceptual means to assume like a designer — as an illustrator, you’re deciphering difficult design prompts and determining tips on how to current visible concepts that usually symbolize complicated matters.
Having one piece however not the opposite is extraordinarily limiting; an ideal illustrator balances and sharpens each. When you’ve got extra of the technical artwork / draftsmanship piece, this limits the kind of high-level tasks that you may tackle and requires a heavy hand by an artwork director to information you thru. In case you’re extra of a conceptual thinker however lack drawing fundamentals, it limits the way in which that you may categorical your concepts — e.g. maybe you’ll be able to solely work in a couple of fundamental kinds. It’s by no means so black-and-white, after all, however placing the 2 collectively in illustration yields high-quality, conceptually sensible work.
JM: Having labored within the expertise world for a few years, what recurring patterns have you ever seen within the sorts of commissions you’ve been awarded?
AL: I’m excited by the truth that illustration has turn into an enormous a part of the tech branding panorama; so many firms are incorporating illustration as keystones of their model. Firms are actually creating their very own distinctive illustration kinds that construct into their model voice, exploring completely different mediums, differentiating themselves, and many others.
That is thrilling to me as a result of I like to work in quite a lot of kinds and mediums; it’s an ideal feeling to increase your self as an artist. A lot of my current tasks have concerned constructing illustration branding techniques along with creating the illustrations themselves, and I really like bringing analog media and textures into a historically vector world. We experimented with this a bit on this WordPress.com illustration branding venture, of including a delicate, candid brush stroke to accent vectorized, exact shapes. With little touches right here and there, beneath an modifying eye, this interaction between combined media does lots to raise what an illustrative voice is saying.
JM: Inform me about your fee from Automattic.
AL: This venture had two components: 1) the primary, constructing out an illustration branding system: the voice and magnificence tips for tips on how to create illustrations that prolonged the model; 2) the second, producing 50+ illustrations that expressed this fashion for use for the product and advertising collateral.
We went by means of prolonged explorations of the illustration fashion: what model did we need to categorical, and the way might it’s expressed visually? A key pressure was in balancing the pleasant, enjoyable, accessible route of the model with the enterprise want of nonetheless being skilled and refined. In some ways, our last output displays this: it’s a mixture of sturdy, grounded shapes that fill out many of the composition, guided by the expressiveness and imperfection of linework that provides in quirky element. The solidness of those geometric shapes remains to be tied in to the prior fashion of illustration used within the product, however the linework provides in persona, playfulness, and a hand-drawn high quality.
JM: What was the identical with respect to your previous work for tech firms, and what was completely different?
AL: One factor I’ve observed is that this stability of “heat, relatable, pleasant, enjoyable” and “polished, critical” is a typical pressure in previous work for tech firms. I believe that is due to a couple components: first, it’s a pure pressure to exist if you’re making an attempt to specific difficult, typically technical ideas by way of visually interesting illustrations. Second, although I work with every firm’s distinctive model voice, you’ll be able to nonetheless see my private voice coming by means of throughout all of my work: energetic, brilliant, and purposeful.
One thing completely different that I cherished was how the group makes use of the WordPress product to doc and touch upon the design course of, as a result of everyone seems to be distant! We had a central illustration weblog the place I’d publish up every spherical of exploration, pose inquiries to the group, and obtain suggestions. On the finish of every main deliverable, it was good to look again on the development and evolution of the fashion and work produced. It was a really structured approach to doc the method, which is missing when your working recordsdata exist solely in emails or asynchronous chat instruments.
JM: How did it really feel to be pushed tougher on the inclusion query?
AL: It was one thing that I deeply appreciated. All of us carry our personal inside assumptions and biases; and identical to in design, assumptions needs to be challenged and improved with completely different views, consumer analysis, and important pondering.
For example, John, you had simply gotten again from doing consumer analysis within the area, speaking to small mother and pop retailers and particular person entrepreneurs within the suburbs. In some early illustrations, I had drawn lots of youthful characters sipping espresso on their computer systems for example individuals engaged on WordPress.com, and also you challenged the “excellent latte / laptop computer world” that could be a frequent backdrop in tech illustrations.
This made me notice that there was an entire vary of traits I used to be lacking from my inside definition of inclusiveness in illustration, resulting from my very own biases: age, occupation, location, life-style, socioeconomic background, and many others. I labored to put characters exterior of the “excellent latte / laptop computer world,” drawing completely different backdrops within the bigger scenes, expressing completely different jobs and backgrounds by means of props and apparel, and together with a bit on tips on how to depict age within the fashion information.
JM: What’s troublesome about taking this route? And what’s simpler?
AL: It’s at all times difficult however essential to deal with your individual biases and assumptions with a view to produce higher work. Within the above instance, as an example, consumer analysis about who really makes use of the product helped inform what the model illustrations seemed like — which in flip leads to visuals which are extra in keeping with the enterprise goal of catering to the precise customers.
It may be troublesome as a result of it’s additionally private: the biases in an individual’s paintings may mirror their private biases. Typically it may be exhausting to be challenged on that, but it surely’s essential to acknowledge and nobody is ever completed with this journey. I additionally assume it’s simpler to begin with inclusion and illustration as core values than it’s to tack it on after you’ve completed the branding course of.
JM: What are your hopes for the way individuals use this language you’ve produced for us?
AL: Artistically, I hope that this language may be prolonged and utilized throughout the platform by many collaborators: designers, illustrators, animators, and many others. I at all times like to see how a mode evolves, and I additionally assume it’s actually cool to have distinct mini-styles inside a bigger model household — so that may be neat to see.
Socially, I hope that we will use these conversations round inclusivity to spark a bigger dialogue within the illustration neighborhood about what it means to be inclusive within the work we produce. For example, I personally not often see individuals of colour depicted in tech product illustrations (or, on a private word, even Asian characters). When John identified the “excellent lovely latte / laptop computer world” bias that’s frequent in tech illustration, I sat again and thought to myself, “you’re so proper!” It made me notice a few of my very own assumptions about what needs to be depicted in illustration, and I hope that we will regularly problem one another throughout the illustration neighborhood.
Identical to photographers, artwork administrators, and designers, we as illustrators have the ability to be considerate and inclusive in our work, to create paintings that exhibits folks that anybody can use these merchandise, not only a sure perceived stereotype of who “ought to” be.
I’ve discovered over time that behind each modern venture launched by an organization partnering with an outdoor artist, there’s a particular any person throughout the firm who cared sufficient to make the case for doing issues otherwise. That particular person, within the case of this venture, is Joan Rho — one in all our new Advertising Designers right here at Automattic.
JM: How did you come by the work of Alice Lee?
JR: I’d seen Alice’s illustration work earlier than and admired each the standard of her work and vary of kinds she was in a position to execute. After a quick preliminary chat along with her about her work, her course of, and studying that she was already acquainted with our platform having been a longtime blogger on WordPress.com, I might inform she’d be an ideal collaborator who might assist us elevate and unify our model’s visible language.
JM: What’s “design”?
JR: It’s communication, it’s innovation, it’s aesthetics, it’s optimization, and it’s strategic. Design shapes the way in which a message or expertise is delivered. Good design is knowledgeable by human habits—it makes issues simpler to make use of, extra intuitive, and extra pleasant to expertise.
JM: Are you able to describe the event of this venture — from its conception to completion?
JR: Our firm, Automattic, was based on open-source ideas: neighborhood, collaboration, and exhausting work. We’re totally distributed with our ~550 workers spanning the globe representing over 50 international locations and over 76 completely different languages. WordPress.com, our main product in our household of choices, is powered by WordPress, the open-source software program venture (which was co-founded by our CEO). WordPress.com has been round since 2005 and is primarily referred to as a robust running a blog platform. Nonetheless, today, you need to use WordPress.com to do way more—resembling beginning a web site for what you are promoting, making a portfolio, and even simply getting a website identify. So, as a part of updating our message to speak this higher, we wished our visible language to additionally mirror what we stand for and what we provide.
This illustration venture was a collaborative effort that looped in many alternative members of our Automattic group spanning numerous timezones, cultures, and backgrounds. A few of our collaborators weren’t even designers, however one factor all of them had in frequent was that they intimately knew WordPress.com and Automattic, which helped me significantly as a relative newcomer to the corporate. I had the advantage of working intently with Kjell Reigstad, a extra veteran designer on the group, who was my “model accomplice” on this venture from the beginning. Kjell’s data of our model’s historical past helped us develop an illustration language that mixed a geometrical fashion in keeping with how we traditionally represented the WordPress.com model with a more moderen, natural fashion that felt extra distinctive and embodied our model values and persona.
JM: What are a couple of turning factors in its evolution the place you noticed “inclusion” coming into the image?
JR: Throughout one in all our inventive critiques, we had been exploring the illustration of human characters (which we hadn’t ever used earlier than throughout our website pages or UI) and it was really a remark by you, John, that initiated the dialogue of introducing extra variety in pores and skin tones, physique sorts, hair colour, age, and many others. into these characters. Many Automatticians joined the dialog due to a immediate by Mel Choyce, sharing private tales and photos of themselves and their buddies representing all kinds of individuals, backgrounds, and private kinds. This offered inspiration for the various forged of characters now you can see throughout our model illustrations. As a minority feminine who grew up seeing principally Caucasians represented in media and design, it’s been very rewarding to assist form a extra inclusive model id.
JM: When you think about our firm, as a fellow beginner as we joined across the similar time final yr, what classes do you are taking away from main this venture with Alice?
JR: Your finest work will at all times be the results of collaboration. Nice collaboration occurs solely with equal belief, respect, and engagement from everybody concerned. Management isn’t about bossing individuals round; it’s about fostering an atmosphere that encourages nice collaboration.
JM: Any shoutouts for different designers who participated on this work?
JR: Shoutout to Alice Lee, Kjell Reigstad, Ballio Chan, John Maeda, Ashleigh Axios, Dave Whitley, Davide Casali, Mel Choyce, and the entire Automatticians who participated within the model discussions and inventive critiques all through the method.
You’ll find these new illustrations by Alice Lee on any of our important pages, resembling /create-website, /create-blog, /business, /personal, /easy, /premium, and extra!
And you may learn the whole story behind these illustrations at Alice Lee’s website proper right here from the identical titled publish, Inclusiveness in Illustration.
Filed beneath: Design, Diversity & Inclusion, WordPress.com 
