Illustrated brand direction and system to be used for 300+ illustrations

The team at Edify wanted me to create the brand’s visual identity which would solidify as a universe of characters and story telling for their product. Beyond that, it would dictate the way their marketing campaign would roll out as they approach launch.

When first approached, the ask was to create some 200-300 unique pieces of artwork. My theory was if I could instead create 10-20 key “golden templates” in addition to a system and set of guidelines, we could have a team of junior designers work on the bulk of things with my overlooking art direction.

The result was fantastic. We built a full way of communicating through this world building exercise. By focusing 80% of our effort on 10% of the work, it trickled down and allowed the client to stay much more efficient while freeing me up to work on other large aspects and not get stuck noodling with minutia.

Quests are at the core of learning for kids. Think Netflix seasons and episodes where a season is a quest, perhaps “Elements of Music” filled with multiple lessons such as, “Tempo”, “Beat”, and “Rhythm”. There are literally hundreds of quests which all need unique artwork, with the assistance of this entire illustration system.

Silver Quests are created in an almost automated way, by choosing various assets from our library of resources and arranging them to a theme; be it water, school, science, etc. There are over 200 of these currently implemented into the site with hundreds more being created.

In order to create artwork for literally hundreds of lessons and quests, we needed a library of semi-modular characters. It was important to strike a balance between overly simple characters that you could swap parts out for (which would be too generic) and giving painstaking detail to every single character (which is not feasible or scalable).

The world is littered with characters big and small, of all sorts. Mainly friendly, but there are room for troubles and grumps.

The core design influenced most of the products interface as well, from buttons and call to actions, to the voice and tone while educating kids.

With so many children all over the spectrum of learning, we wanted children that have a difficult time communicating they emotions to be able to have a voice through making music. From sad and somber music to exciting celebratory, kids are thrilled to have a way to express themselves and feel heard.

I want to make more robust illustration identity systems, small spots, or anything in between so feel free to reach out - kirk@bone.haus