Illustration development: preparing to launch

3 minute read

A few months ago we were given the opportunity to work on a fantastic new project; to design and build a space-themed educational game for school kids aged 4-10.

Whilst we’re still very much in the midst of it, we’re too excited to keep it to ourselves and wanted to give you a sneak peek into the developments of the illustration process so far.

We knew we wanted to work in a flat design style from the off, as we had to consider scalability with the illustration across all platforms, so all assets would need to be vector. There was also the need to produce designs quickly and easily - whilst nice, overly detailed illustrations would promptly become a rod for our backs.

I used the imagery below as a foundation for what was produced in our hackathon in June earlier this year.

These were some of the concepts we used as a springboard to dictate the look and feel of the game during the hackathon.

Whilst we really liked the style, by the end of hackathon week we felt that, on review, the direction was leaning too much towards the younger kids rather than their older counterparts. It was also proving difficult to develop the style further due to its simplicity.

Back to the literal drawing board, and still in need of flat vector friendly design, I created new moodboards - taking inspiration from tonal palettes in indie games, vintage and graphic space posters, as well as scenes from older sci-fi films.