Illustration helps convey complex ideas in a simple way. They should be meaningful and reflect a user's context and emotional state. This is used in our social graphics, to promote our classes as well as our brand and company culture.

Illustration is a key element of the brand system.

Our illustrations and social graphics have a consistent narrative of practicality, optimism, and friendliness used throughout. This is accomplished through shape, type, color and curves to achieve an inviting, engaging experience.

Illustration and Graphics can:

Represent our brand - personality, voice, and platform - in an efficient and clear way
Scale up or down depending on the context
Affect tone and speak directly to our audience depending on the job to be done and the audience's emotional state
Help to tell stories and thoughtfully convey ideas - they should not be used as decoration or without consideration
Make complex ideas more accessible

Our Use of Illustration and Graphics

Our brand is clean and fresh, with our signature wave running through the majority of our collateral to bring in a sense of fun and playfullness. Our visual assets should never distract or overshadow the key message, but carry it forward.

Illustrations and graphics in particular should be used sparingly on social media. If they are used constantly it devalues the messaging. There needs to be a balance of awareness and CTA content to support acquisition and retention.

The Wave

This wave is signature to us, influenced by the fluidity of water with a playful splash of orange. We use the wave across marketing touchpoints to support a cohesive, clear, and consistent user journey from start to finish. Because of this, the wave is recognisable to Water Babies as a brand. We use this to separate images and copy, as an animated intro/ outro to our videos and to add some design flair to our documents. As well as:

websites, landing pages, microsites, service sites
presentations
demand generation assets (banner ads, etc)
emails
social media platforms (graphics, headers, etc)
Print collateral: posters, banners, leaflets, flyers
Retail Products: Tote bags, table cloths, beach towel.

When to use

Social Graphics

We use graphics across our social media platforms to create inflections of our brand throughout the entire feed. Having our brand colours, fonts, wave and personality present through our feed creates a cohesive impression to those looking at our social media, and will help us as a brand become more recognisable.

Benefits

Benefits icons are specifically used to represent a benefit of baby swimming specific to Water Babies messaging, such as ‘strong heart functions’ and ‘Boosts confidence’. These icons are different from standard icons as they are accompanied by text within the design itself for maximum legibility. These are mostly used across print collateral such as banners and leaflets.

Creating Social Graphics

When creating social graphics, please see our more in depth guidance on the DAM for how to put them together. There are over 50 templates for you to choose from to create your own social posts, including timetables.

All social graphics created should be done so through the DAM and all of the materials on there. If you would like anything new, or have any ideas please send a ticket in to marketingsupport@waterbabies.co.uk