Should I use a photo or an illustration? or maybe both??

At Root Studio, we've worked with businesses all over the world to create both photographic and illustrated campaigns - with success using either route. So which is right for you?

Using our experience, we’ve broken down the benefits of using photos vs illustrations as well as other considerations you should be making when going down either path.

Benefits of using a photo vs an illustration:

• Gives an accurate/literal representation of a place or person (e.g. when advertising a home for sale, product or a holiday package)

• Appealing to the senses (e.g. mouthwatering food photos)

• More personable portrait photos

• Gives a sense of personal touch - such as handmade, artisan items or face-to-face personal service

Benefits of using an illustration vs a photo:

• Great for storytelling or capturing a particular concept

• Great for visualising data

• Not restricted by real-life rules (gravity, lighting, time)

• Go back in history - illustrations can show a time that predates the photograph

• Scalability - whilst photos can only be resized to the limit of their original resolution, a vector illustration can be resized indefinitely

• Depending on the style of your illustration, you can see much smaller filesizes with illustrations compared to large photos which would lead to faster loading times on your website for instance

• An illustration can be tweaked and tailored to suit your brand

• You can typically bring your illustrations to life with animation

Bridging the gap between photo and illustration:

Photorealistic 3D illustrations of a product can be used to show angles and details that would be otherwise impossible or very difficult to capture with traditional photography (or represent a product that might not have even been manufactured yet). They are also great for showing a range of items from a consistent angle with exactly the same lighting etc.

Adding illustrated elements to a photo is a great way to add creativity to your marketing and combine realism with fantasy.

Photo manipulation can be a way to bring surrealism to your photograph, tell more of a story or visualise a concept more clearly.

Other considerations when choosing whether to use a photo or illustration for your project

Context - Obviously it’s important to consider context when deliberating whether or not to use illustrations over photography. The style, subject, tone and choice of colour will make a huge difference to the appropriateness of an image for the message you’re trying to share. Is an illustration appropriate for this product, our brand, this message and our audience?

Beware of stock images - whether you’re using photography or illustration, stock images can be incredibly convenient for a project. It’s worth thinking about how popular the image you’ve chosen might be (if you’re using the same image as a competitor for instance this won’t differentiate you at all). Another consideration would be whether or not the style of the image you’re choosing is consistent with other images you’ve used elsewhere in your marketing.

What does your audience prefer? Perform some customer research such as an empathy map to really think about what your audience finds most important and what might appeal to them directly. If someone’s buying something tangible, chances are they’d prefer to see the real thing - an illustration doesn’t make it clear what they’re going to get if they buy the product.

Budget - commissioning a photography shoot or custom illustrations are quite costly but should be seen as an investment.

Next steps...

If you're still unsure which direction is best for you or would be interested in discussing customer research or commissioning an image then let us know and we'd be more than happy to set up a call or arrange a chat soon.