The Guardian Jobs
Animated illustrations
OLIVER
The Guardian
2024
Back in 2024, The Guardian Jobs underwent a brand refresh. The brand team adopted a new style guide, with an updated colour palette, refreshed tone of voice and introduced illustrations that complimented the core Guardian brand but were still relevant to their target audience.
I was brought in to help with the animation styling and production of the illustrations, working alongside the core Guardian Jobs team as well as, OLIVER's in-house design team.
Illustrations created by a freelance illustrator.
The goal
The Guardian brand team focused the illustration approach to be less abstract and more direct, transitioning to a friendlier, more relatable style. The primary goal was to ensure that the new illustrations had a prominent ‘human element’ which gives their audience the opportunity to ‘see themselves’ in the branding. Ultimately The Guardian wanted the illustrations to be animated to avoid viewer fatigue and to keep their social and web platforms visually exciting and engaging.
Results
The impact of animating the illustrations led to an increase in the click through rate compared to previous The Guardian Jobs digital ads, resulting in an increased brand awareness for The Guardian Jobs. From a brand point of view, animating the illustrations meant they could be reused across digital platforms or OOH marketing without looking too stagnant.
