Character Illustrations by Gabriella Szendrey for The Net School

In the new case study issue, let’s take a look at the character illustration and design created for The Net by illustrator, visual development artist, and art director Gabriella Szendrey. The artist shared the details and creative flow of the project in her Behance portfolio.

Client and Project

The client approached the artist with the task of creating key illustrations and a brand mascot/character design as part of the identity for an educational platform that helps JC students master critical thinking, persuasive writing, and global awareness through mentorship.

Process and Outcome

The first round focused on character design for the mascot, which would be visually associated with students and convey the emotions of warmth, friendliness, smartness, and assistance. The illustrator did a thorough job of experimenting with directions, expressions, patterns, shapes, accessories, hairstyles, and even fancy hats. Then, they narrowed the concept for the facial features, and she tried on some colors and cloaks. Eventually, the final version of the mascot was chosen.

The next phase aimed at creating four different key illustrations featuring the mascot character.

As the artist mentions in her description of the project, at this point, they were not certain about the scarf yet and wanted to see how it worked in action. So, all concepts had versions with and without the scarf. After checking how it works, the scarf version was selected for deeper development. Here’s a set of initial concepts the illustrator shares from this creative stage.

Key illustration 1: Fungi as a safety net

Key illustration 2: Growth

Key illustration 3: Ecosystem/Network

Key illustration 4: Springboard into adulthood

After a few rounds of discussions and changes, the finally chosen key illustrations were the following:

After some testing, exploring and recalibrating on the client side, the client’s team contacted the artist again to revisit the concepts. They wanted to figure out a way to tweak them to make them pop on the new website. Some of the ideas were simplified, so the artist redrew all the illustrations using a stronger linework, plus the fifth key illustration joined the party. So, the final set turned out as follows:

And here’s a look at how they tried integrating illustrations into the website’s page layouts.

See more illustration projects in Gabriella Szendrey’s Behance portfolio.

New D4U Gallery issues are coming soon; stay tuned for new posts.

For more inspiration, check the sets of other posts from our D4U Gallery, where we gather impressive creatives to share their art with you, for example:

• logos and identity design
• wildlife-inspired illustration projects
• vibrant digital illustrations collection
• illustration-based packaging for food and beverage
• artistic packaging design for biscuit brand
• abstract poster designs
• food lovers guide: illustrations and graphic design
• 3D character art projects
• wine packaging design
• captivating 3D animation concepts
• impressive packaging designs 
• childhood illustrations
• 3D illustrations