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Illustration

Illustration types

We use a number of different kinds of illustrations, each with their own distinct rules. Learn about when to use each illustration style and tips for creating them.

Featured post illustrations

An Air Force parachutist jumping out of a plan, with digital components in the background.
A swab test being administered and recorded on a tablet.
A pair of hands moving objects around to make a pattern.
Family with young children sitting together with a mobile phone in the background showing a green status checkmark.
A person using a punchcard to enter work.
Doctors, administrators, and veteran patients interacting through digital panes.

Illustrations for posts, such as a case study or blog article, use one or two (three if absolutely needed) bright colors from the illustration palette.

These images are always full bleed with a background color.

Floating illustrations:
monochromatic

Woman walking with a book in front of a map pin.
Man walking up an incline holding a laptop.
Woman teaching in front of a whiteboard.
A teacher instructing in front of a white board.
A woman studying.
A man pouring the contents of the course into a funnel.

Floating images don’t have borders or any background color.

They’re monochromatic using a bold color from the illustration palette. Accent with gray-100 and sparingly with light gray.

Floating illustrations:
rotate colors

Illustration of a government building in a computer browser with a green checkmark, surrounded by icons that represent different service functions.
Illustration of various government workers with gears and light bulbs in the background.
Illustration of a government building, encircled by icons that represent important government functions.
Illustration of a technology maze with an arrow representing how to navigate the complexity.

Even though illustrations are monochromatic, pages or layouts with many floating images should rotate through the different primary Skylight colors.

These images are used primarily within pages on the website.

Heroes

Standard hero banner

Tall hero banner

Mobile hero banner

Hero banners are monochromatic.

The base color uses a primary color and the rest of the illustration uses lighter or darker shades. Each section of the website uses one color.

Hero banners are made of 2–4 illustration vignettes and the geometric shapes. The shapes are anchored to the vignettes and sprinkled throughout the layout to drive focus to the text.

Portraits

Tiffany Nieh illustration
Becca Woodberry illustration
Laura Kerry illustration
Andrew Lloyd illustration
Chun Yen illustration
Ashton Tu illustration

Portraits use 1–2 primary colors, as well as any skin and hair color needed.

These images are always full bleed with a background color.