Valentine’s Day isn’t all romance…. What would we do without our coworkers, Zoommates, virtual besties, childcare providers, teachers, delivery workers or doctors?
To show some love for these wonderful people in your life, we’ve created some fun cards you can download and share.
After clicking the download button, right click and select “Save Image As…” to save to your device.
This year, we put our heads together to develop a beautiful, inclusive, and functional illustration style guide for Eleven Peppers. Below is a sampling of elements we included, along with factors that guided our process.
Illustration is a great tool to use when photography or other graphical elements aren’t possible or don’t make sense. You can illustrate a visual metaphor to demonstrate a value that might otherwise be difficult to communicate.
Perhaps the strongest benefit of using illustration is its storytelling ability. Rather than using photography which is limited to real-world possibilities, illustrating a story opens up an entire universe – any character, scene, or message can be conveyed in any way you can imagine!
Using illustration strategically can add nuance, depth, and richness to an otherwise ordinary object/scene. When used for human figures, it can convey subtle or extreme personality traits. Illustration elements like color, texture, pattern, shape, level of detail, and composition can control your desired message.
Custom designed illustrations have played a big role for our 11P brand. Illustrations have assisted us in conveying our uniqueness and our company’s vibrant, fun, and friendly culture. This energy and originality is what guided our illustration aesthetic – down to the tiniest detail. In order to ensure that our illustration style truly represented us, we made sure it embodied the following principles:
At 11P we like to keep it light and fun, just like our funfetti circles or our Pepper dude.
Personality, personality, personality! Illustrations should have an attitude and ours is up-beat!
Boring? No way! We always add a little zest to everything we do.
Each person brings something completely different to the table. Our diversity is our strength.
An illustration style guide is crucial when establishing brand consistency! Having clearly defined guidelines also speeds up production, so designers can keep their focus on concepts and messaging rather than aesthetic. Below are key elements we included to streamline our illustration design process.
We knew we had to include a wide range of colors to represent the diversity of our team. Staying true to our original brand colors, we simply defined how each color would be used in regard to skin tones and hair colors. We also included a detailed complimentary brand palette to assist in illustrating dimension on objects for maximum impact.
Texture is another powerful tool to add personality to brand illustrations. We opted to include a speckled brush, used to create depth via shadows and highlights. This element adds a “handmade” quality to an otherwise clean vector, communicating our hands-on, custom approach to challenges.
Our 11P “funfetti” pattern is great for filling in objects with a bit of interest – for instance, on clothing or a backdrop. It’s like a sprinkle of our playful attitude.
The vector shapes are solid and crisp-edged, but with soft curves. This style is clean, efficient, and flexible for all shapes. These strong shapes provide structure, balancing out the softness that comes from our palette, textures and fun patterns.
Creating a character library was a must so that any team member could easily grab features to create new, distinct characters to diversifying our character illustrations. We created an entire library full of different face shapes, facial features, figures and hairs styles – making it fairly easy for any team member to assemble a character under a time constraint.
Illustrations can add value to any brand by conveying the company’s personality and voice in an approachable visual format that’s easy for a viewer to comprehend. Custom illustrations should reflect the design and energy of the overall brand and should be consistent with designs and iconography used on all marketing materials.
At 11P, our illustrations play a key role on our website, presentations, advertisements, newsletters, social media, infographics, and videos. Having a clearly defined style guide assists in our success though all of these mediums!
Black Friday and Cyber Monday really got us in the spirit of shopping. If you are still searching for the perfect gift for the creative person in your life, we’re here to help. We’ve put together a list of 11 unique gifts that they’ll love! Check them out below!
The 11p commercial team is always up for a challenge. We feel very comfortable designing custom illustrations and icons, but we’re always thinking… “How can we take it a step farther?” How about three-dimensional illustrations with motion?
Admittedly, we were inspired by all the great designers out there already pushing the envelope. Designers like Gail Armstrong, Adé Hogue, and Julene Harrison.
We love the tactile quality of working with paper and the opportunity to bring designs off the computer and get physical! We also value the addition of motion to our work. Even the simplest animation can add a considerable amount of life and energy to an illustration. Check out this article by Hoodzpah Design for more on that.
With Thanksgiving on the horizon, we saw this as the perfect holiday to experiment with these concepts. Below is a behind-the-scenes view of the process we followed to create our Thanksgiving social media posts. Since this is our first project using these methods, there are lots of lessons-learned, but we hope you enjoy the playfulness and energy of the final product. It combines all of the items that bring happiness during a spicy Maryland Thanksgiving (some of us root for teams other than the Ravens and that’s OK 😉 ). Happy Thanksgiving!
We took inspiration from one of the most treasured Thanksgiving Day traditions – The Macy’s parade!
We used a Cricut machine to cut most of the float shapes and then added fold lines to create extra depth.
WRITTEN BY
Melissa London
Art Director at 11P, Toddler Influencer, Wine and Cheese Enthusiast, Maker of Crafty Things.
EXPLORE “The Great Indoors” with your kiddos! Download our one-of-a-kind coloring book filled with fun ways to bring typical outdoor activities – INSIDE.
After clicking the download button, you can save the PDF to your device.
Coloring is a great stress reliever for both kids and adults! Check out more cool coloring options below:
With the age of technology, we are able to do so much more and reach so many more people in literally seconds. But does all of that time in front of a screen start to have a negative impact on our creativity and thoughtfulness? Can moving away from our screens change and improve our designs?
Yes, most of us are designing for screens, but our users are not spending most of their day interacting with screens. They are interacting with real world objects and people, so shouldn’t we be doing the same while designing those interfaces?
Challenge your design process or your team to try new ways to problem solve and discover. We don’t need our fancy programs to design, we just need brain power and a problem. So let’s stop clicking and start thinking!
Product Audit – Take the time to discover everything about the current tool/new project from speaking with the stakeholders.
Kick-off Meetings – Get everyone in a room for a whole day – or more! This is a useful strategy for business, development, content, and design.
Competitive Analysis – Go to real locations of similar and non-related businesses and ask all the questions you would normally discover from website competitive analysis.
User Interviews/Research – Use IDEO Methods (IDEO Method Cards are tools that we can use as designers to research our users, products, and potential projects). Talk to real people.
Personas – Team scrapbooking for real people you’ve met in your research. Pull faces from magazines or other papers.
Include all team members in the planning effort (yes Devs, you too)!
User Journeys/Scenarios – Get everyone’s perspective to create User Journey Stories on a white board. Make it a team discussion!
Requirements Document – Make more than a designer’s checklist…. Get everyone’s perspective on what will happen and when. Your requirements start to form your product’s culture. Who/What > Action > When.
Prioritization and Timeline – Don’t start by using a fancy online system like Monday or Jira. Ask everyone for input on prioritizing tasks from the Requirement Documentation.
Conceptual Models – Go to the same places your users go when interacting with like-products or in similar environments like the one you’re creating. Are there any common concepts the users may be used to, like a shopping cart? Can and should these be relayed to the screen?
Information Architecture – Get out the cards! Time for some classic IDEO card-sorting. There are so many amazing hands-on ways to discover a hierarchy that makes sense for your content.
Error Handling – Pick up the phone OR go offsite to better understand how businesses and people handle errors in the real world.
Structuring and Language – Time to make another stop! Head out to where your users would interact with the content of your product. Finding any familiar/unfamiliar language? What kind of process do user’s go through when coming to these locations?
User Flows – Break out the sticky notes! Create a tangible, yet visual way to organize all of your content, pages, and features. Get the team in on this one!
Navigation Design/Wayfinding – Go to locations that typically have strong direction-based environments. Think of places like IKEA, a popular trail, malls, etc. Note the way yourself and users navigate through and around the location.
Brainstorming Session – The more brains, the merrier! Don’t slump back into your cubicle quite yet. Share all your findings and hear what your team has to say! You might be surprised by what you’ve missed along the way.
Thumbnail Sketches – Sharpen those pencils and get to drawing. Don’t be precise! You should spend 30 seconds to a minute on each sketch. Include the whole team on this one! You’re not the only one who can make boxes and arrows.
Wireframes – Sketch, Illustrator, and XD, OH NO! Grab your graph paper and pencil to cleaner lines and more accurate positioning. This is a time for some epic iteration. Share with your team, try and grab some real users. Just keep drawing!
Use All 5 Senses – Use all of your senses! Everyone knows what Christmas smells like and everyone can picture the feeling of crunching down on a leaf in the fall. How can you take advantage of all of your user’s senses to create a well-rounded brand?
Mood Board – Go hunting for inspiration, no not on the internet. Find actual objects to represent your brand’s look and feel. Go into it with some key words and ask your team if you hit the mark.
Typography – Don’t just pair fonts… Take images of existing fonts from real life. Compare them to our mood board of senses! Do they fit in? What type of fonts match the best?
Style Guide and Mockups – Bring in the Developers and determine all of the elements you need based on your wireframes. Bring print outs of your wireframes and have coloring sessions with your brand colors to determine final look.
WRITTEN BY
Halie Wickiser
Halie Wickiser has worked as a Senior UX Designer at Eleven Peppers Studios for over a year. She has over five years of UX and UI design experience creating intuitive and user-centered applications.
Really spice things up this Valentine’s Day with one of our printable cards! Whether you want to bring the heat or tell them that you’re meant to be, these messages will have your “special someone” feeling all the love. Enjoy!
We’re releasing one design today and releasing two others tomorrow morning. Check back at 7am on February 14th!
I remember graduating from college in 2014 and while Graphic Design was a hot commodity at the time, there was another fad I remember starting to emerge in full force– User Experience Design. While I was aware that this was something that has always been around, there weren’t *many* positions open for it and the title itself, was still a little taboo. Now, thanks to major tech giants like Apple, Microsoft and Google, we have a mainstream idea of what UX is and the importance it brings to any company– big or small.
If you’re interested in breaking into this lucrative field, I’m here to give you some tips as to what that experience is like and what are some of the best practices to stay AHEAD of the game:
There is no “one way” process. Depending on the needs and goals of the project and your stakeholders, it’s important to know that there is no “one way” of starting a UX project. Sure, you’ll outline needs/goals and conduct User Research– but when it comes to thinking through user journeys, will it make sense to create a User Flow or a Task Flow for this project? What about both? and yes, there’s a difference. Point is, what I’ve come to learn is that there is no specific way, and this is OK. It all depends upon the stakeholder needs, budget, timeline and of course, the users needs.
It’s all about how you think. Do you know what is going to set you apart from those wireframes and mockups you spent all week churning out? Your design thinking behind them. If you’re able to identify a problem, come up with a solution and defend those solutions supported with evidence in a succinct way, you’re already more than half way there. In the beginning of a project, UX managers are actually not all that concerned with your solution just yet, but more so how you got there. If you’re able to explain your rationale and show how it falls along user goals and needs, you’re bound to be successful!
Storytelling is your secret weapon. It’s important to be able to frame a situation/task/problem to someone who isn’t as familiar with design thinking or terms– which may be 90% of your stakeholders. Putting a “human face” to the analytical data makes it easy enough for everyone to put complex design ideas and decisions into perspective. It’s also a great way to understand existing scenarios and test the potential of any others. You can even kick it up a notch and use rough sketches and illustration to Storyboard. This can give you and your colleagues a low-level visual of the idea of each frame of the customer’s journey, but supported with a high-level narrative. This is a great way to keep iterating until every task is accounted for!
User Needs vs. Stakeholder Needs. While the needs of both users and stakeholders are incredibly important, you’re eventually going to find those needs conflicting. A great way to prevent those needs from clashing in the first place is to always keep them in the loop. Stakeholder participation can help remove any obstacles early on while user research could assist stakeholders in putting the goals and needs of the product into priority/perspective. Aligning your user research with stakeholder goals is crucial in product success and overall effective communication. Happy stakeholder + Happy user = WIN/WIN!
Always be ready to learn. Now that the supply of UX design has reached the demand, there is no excuse for not keeping up with the latest news, resources, toolkits and programs relating to UX. A genuine interest in the topic, outside of work, is important to have. We now live in a time where free, downloadable UI toolkits and Podcasts with industry experts are within our fingertips. So, be ready to continuously learn! This field is always evolving and it’s really important to stay on top of it all– from design programs to emerging experts, I’ve learned that while I am able to understand a lot of what I do on the job, it’s also important to learn the theory behind it all. This is something that will always resonate no matter what stage you’re at in your career.
So… to help you get you started, here are a few of my personal favorites to get those wheels turning:
Recommended Programs / Plugins:
Sketch (Industry standard! You know Sketch, you know them all!)
Sketch Craft Plug-In (Easy to update designs for InVision prototypes in real time)
Recommended User Flow programs:
Miro (formally known as RealTimeBoard)
Recommended programs for Development collaboration:
Recommended YouTube channels:
Recommended Readings:
Lean UX: Designing Great Products with Agile Teams by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden
Literally anything on Medium, but I do love the articles Tiffany Eaton writes (Product Designer at Google)!
Recommended Podcasts:
99% Invisible
The Hacking UI Podcast
Product Breakfast Club
WRITTEN BY
Ashley Philip
Ashley Philip has worked as a Commercial Designer at Eleven Peppers Studios for over three years. She has over six years of experience in graphic design and is currently pursuing a Master’s in User Experience Design at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Ashley has a profound interest in solving user problems with a focus on the development and design of products themselves.
In recent years, it’s been noted that we need more women in the technology field. The truth is, women have been involved in technology for decades. Unfortunately their stories haven’t made it to the forefront of our history lessons. To encourage more women to join the ranks of these pioneers, it is vital that we recognize those who have forged ahead and made advances in the tech industry. We need female role models in order to inspire young women to dive into technology at an early age.
Below is a brief history and timeline of women over the years who have shaped and impacted the tech industry. From designers to mathematicians, these women changed the world we live in with their innovative spirits and groundbreaking inventions.
Ada Lovelace – 1800’s
Recognized as the world’s first computer programmer, Ada Lovelace worked with Charles Babbage’s “Analytical Engine” design by translating lecture notes from French to English. During her work, Ada discovered many errors and realized the machine could be used for more than calculation. In 1843, she created the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine – thus creating the first concept of a computer operating system.
Edith Clarke – 1920’s
Known as a human computer, Edith Clarke was the first woman to earn her master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She invented the Clarke calculator which computed electrical systems equations 10 times faster than existing methods and worked on the construction of the Hoover Dam. In 2015, Clarke was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Grace Hopper – 1940-50’s
Admiral Grace Hopper was a huge believer in change and fought the phrase, “We’ve always done it this way,” her whole career. Prior to language-based computer programming, computers used binary code. Enter Grace, who took on programming in English which sparked the development of the common business-oriented language (COBOL) that is still widely used today.
Katherine Johnson – 1950-60’s
Ever since she could remember, Katherine Johnson loved math. It was this love that eventually lead her to NASA where she worked on crucial missions including the Apollo 11 flight to the moon. At NASA, Katherine calculated the trajectories, launch windows, and emergency back-up return paths for numerous missions. In 2015, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and recently NASA renamed a facility after Katherine to honor her efforts.
Susan Kare – 1980-90’s
Graphic designer Susan Kare is responsible for developing some of Apple’s signature graphics. Although the graphics look simple, they are incredibly difficult to design. Think about it – she created a way to communicate different technologies via pictures, making them crystal clear to each user. These innovations are still used as icons to this day. Susan was honored for her efforts with an AIGA Medal, a prestigious award in the design world.
Megan Smith – 2010’s
First female Chief Technical Officer of the White House, Megan Smith is a huge advocate for women in STEM fields. Before working at the White House during the Obama Administration, she served as Vice President of Business Development at Google and CEO of PlanetOut, a leading LGBT online community. Megan is currently the CEO and founder of shift7, an organization that works in partnership on systemic economic, social, and environmental challenges.
WRITTEN BY
Cindy Madden
Contributor at 11P, Wordsmither, Lover of Foods Wrapped in Dough, Proud Cat Lady.
Ada Lovelace. Digital image. Scientific American. 10 October 2017, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/image.
Edith Clarke. Digital image. Wikipedia. 27 January 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Clarke.
Grace Hopper. Digital image. Vassar College. 06 July 2017, https://stories.vassar.edu/image.
Katherine Johnson. Digital image. NASA. 24 November 2015, https://www.nasa.gov/image.
Susan Kare. Digital image. PLOS. 22 November 2011, https://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/image.
Megan Smith. Digital image. NPR. 04 November 2014, https://www.npr.org/image.
And we’ve got a winner!!!
But first, just in case you missed the STAR WARS TAKEOVER on our social feeds, head on over to our Instagram or Facebook account. It’s okay, we’ll wait…
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Did you hear the one about the Star Wars text crawl walking into a bar?
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The bartender yells, “Get outta my pub! We don’t serve your type here.” (Reader’s Digest)
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Just a little designer humor for you…
Okay, so today, we’re announcing the most popular Star Wars character illustration. There were six total and it was a close battle…
So, are you ready?
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The winner is… BB8!!!!
Now let’s see how that magic happened…
We also wanted to share a little behind the scenes footage of our talented designers work.
Another year, another Star Wars Day gone. We hoped you enjoyed the takeover!!!
May The Fourth Be With You.
