Say hello to Helping Hands
This was one of three branding concepts I created for an illustration project for the mental health company, MYNDUP. This was a self started project that I suggested to the wider team as at the time our brand wasn't particularly engaging or suited to a mental health comapany. By creating a cohesive visual identity our brand would become more memorable to potential clients and stand out against MYNDUP's competitor!
Whilst working on this project I created three new visual identities, which I named - Chatter boxes, Hearts of Gold and Helping Hands. We then, as a team, choose the strongest concept which ended up being Helping Hands.
The concept Helping Hands started with the idea of ‘giving someone a helping hand’ which related perfectly to the service MYNDUP provides, which is mental health session, such as therapy, counselling and coaching. This lead me to realise that hands are an excellent symbol of helping and supporting someone.
Hands also humanise our brand and reflect how the product is essentially all about human support. We also wanted the illustration style to reflect the inclusivity of our product. MYNDUP caters to a wide range of mental health problems and is here to support different careers, different ethnicity and sexualities. I wanted this to be clear in our brand identity.
Hand guidelines:
Once this concept was signed off I then builded out the illustration style by creating strict guidelines for how to use and replicate the hands. I also created a design system on Figma for the illustrations which helped refine the illustration style. You can see this design system in my design system project.
Objects:
As I continued to refine the illustration style I realised I also needed to define and create guidelines for objects that are used with the hands. This lead me to design a library of objects that can be used on their own or with the hands to illustrate or symbolise certain subjects or situations.
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These also belong in the design system and have separate rules and guidelines.
Mockups:
Before I presented the new illustration style to the company I created some mockups to showcase the design and how copy can compliment the illustrations. The same designs were used on internet and social media ads.
