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We know finding your own illustration style can be a bit of a challenge. After all, illustration is an incredibly versatile artistic practice.
That's why we encourage graphic designers to continuously brush up on their illustration skills to stay ahead of the curve. Or to get inspired by different art movements or other famous graphic designers.
From flat designs and vector illustrations to whimsical fantasy art — let's explore 12 different illustration styles you could start playing around with today.
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What are the different styles of Illustration?
Traditional illustration started with techniques such as drawing, painting, and carving on a wide range of mediums:
- Block illustration
- Charcoal illustration
- Ink illustration
- Woodcut illustration
- Watercolor illustration
- Advertising illustration
- Scientific illustration
- Pencil Illustration
- Collage illustration
- Acrylic illustration
These illustration techniques are still well-loved, but our commonly used tools have evolved significantly from traditional mediums. Most illustrators have now turned to digital illustration software to create vector illustrations and digital designs.
But without further ado, let's dive into 12 different styles of illustration to inspire your next creations.
Vintage and retro
As the name suggests, the vintage and retro illustration style evokes the aesthetic of past eras. It is popular for using hand-drawn elements, grainy textures, and muted colors.
Neil Stevens is an illustrator who has successfully developed his style around vintage illustrations. His portfolio includes work for clients such as The Guardian, The Hollywood Reporter, and The Washington Post, and cultivating this style has served him admirably.
Malika Favre is another well-known digital artist whose retro style is described as "Pop Art meets OpArt." In her work, the sex appeal of the '50s and '60s meets contemporary minimalism to create irresistible retro-inspired illustrations.
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Realism
Realism illustrators are talented artists who can capture realistic depictions through immense detail, a brilliant portrayal of emotion, or perfect accuracy in composition.
However, many realistic vector art pieces retain a little artistic flair and stylization while resembling the real world. If you look at this example from digital illustrator Abdelrahman Taymour below, you’ll see how he uses stylized texture to bring an artistic flair to the portrait while still capturing Walter White with realistic detail.
On the other hand, you might be blown away by Irakli Nadar's hyperreal digital paintings. These amazing illustrations exemplify excruciating attention to detail.
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Fantasy
Fantasy illustration is moody and enchanting, alive with mythology, magic, fables, legends, and science fiction. Stories inspire this style of illustration that depicts magical worlds, supernatural scenes, and characters. It is usually quite detailed, exercising immense skill from these imaginative illustrators. Depth of detail combined with moody atmospheres brings these stories to life, immersing the viewer in an alternative, fantastic world.
Fantasy illustration is commonly used in the gaming industry, as well as book illustrations.
Take Bayard Wu as an example — a professional illustrator and concept artist working in the gaming industry. His Orc Girls illustration below is a beautiful example of the types of creatures, detail, action, and story prevalent in this art style.
On the other hand, this digital artwork by Gosia Kmiec is much lighter yet equally strange. It's a beautiful example of the types of imaginative creatures you'll find in fantasy art.
Comic book
A professional illustrator for Marvel Comics, Mark Brooks, highlighted the importance of storytelling when creating comic books:
“I’ve learned that it’s a lot more to do with the storytelling than just pretty art … Comics are a lot more than art, I see a lot of up and comers that get into comics in the same position I was in, and I see them focusing very heavily on the way they draw and doing covers and pin-ups and things like that, and I don’t see a lot of focus on storytelling, which is something I’ve really tried to focus on in the last few years. I think if anyone can learn from my experience, focus on that just as much as focusing on your art.”
Traditional comic books have inspired many contemporary illustrators in style, story, and character creation. By considering the layout structure of comic stories, illustrators have to imagine the story panel by panel, which requires a particular type of creative thinking that's a good challenge for any designer!
Graphic novels are another illustration type similar to the comic book style. A good example is Neil Gaiman’s renowned fantasy horror graphic novel, The Sandman. It uses dark illustrations to depict obscure and haunting themes. Aligning visuals with the story’s mood is essential for immersing the viewer in your story.
Fashion
Fashion designers use sketching as a tool for communicating their ideas. Fashion illustrations emerged from the need for quick sketches and to highlight how clothes will look on models.
Fashion designers will develop their ideas over multiple sketches, creating each sketch in seconds to keep the idea moving until it's finalized. These types of illustrations are produced quickly and are usually defined by rough lines and a generally loose aesthetic.
Fashion design illustration is bursting with attitude, culture, and couture. While it's still mainly used by fashion designers, this type of illustration has inspired many artists who are not fashion designers but simply want to bring the aesthetic into their designs.
Browsing through designs from big fashion names such as Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton can be worthwhile for illustration inspiration.
Line art
Line art is a form of illustration that uses space and simplicity to create images. While many line art designs tend to be black and white, some artists weave in color here and there.
Line art has become an increasingly popular modern style of illustration, especially on social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest.
You probably have encountered Rupi Kaur's famous Instagram poetry. She illustrates poems with simple yet beautiful clean line drawings.
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Flat illustration
This graphic design trend blew up in 2020, and it's here to stay. Brands are going crazy for flat illustrations in all kinds of visual communication for apps, websites, editorial illustrations, and beyond.
This popular type of illustration consists of flat, two-dimensional visual details rather than detailed 3D graphics. Illustrators working with this style incorporate bold colors, interesting perspectives, and movement to give images a sense of depth and life.
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Caricature
Caricature is a style of cartoon in which specific features of a character are exaggerated to emphasize a message that the illustration is communicating. This style of illustration is usually defined by humor.
Political illustrators commonly use caricatures to make fun of or criticize leaders or socioeconomic situations.
You'll also probably be familiar with caricature artists who create caricature-style drawings of ordinary people in the street or at fairs and festivals. Caricature illustrators have a talent for portraying personality and humor.
Children's book illustration
Each children's book illustrator has a unique style, so the field is broad and can't be narrowed down to one definitive style. Some key features, however, are usually vibrant colors, a sense of movement, and defined emotion.
These types of illustrations rely on a definitive theme to carry a story. They are often imaginative and use exciting patterns and bright colors to keep children engaged in the story.
Cartoon illustration
Cartoons are similar to comic-style illustrations in that they are intertwined with storytelling. They are often used in panels, along with wording and plot, to tell a story.
Cartoon illustration usually has a childlike, whimsical sensibility. Snoopy and Garfield are well-known print cartoons that have defined this style.
Animated cartoons have further developed the style by turning static images into dynamic illustrations. They create fictional characters and worlds where viewers are transported to a different reality that can be as big as their imagination.
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3D illustration
3D illustration adds depth to images, making elements and characters appear three-dimensional. This style has gained popularity in fields like product development, home design, and virtual reality, as it provides a realistic way to visualize how something might look. 3D illustration brings ordinary images to life by adding dimension and lifelike qualities.
Psychedelic illustration
While this could be grouped under "retro," as the psychedelic aesthetic was popular in the '60s and '70s, it's been such an influential style that it deserves acknowledgment.
Psychedelic illustration features vibrant colors, a wide range of patterns, and a surreal, “trippy” style. This type of illustration is inspired by the use of psychedelic substances such as LSD and “magic” mushrooms.
Chris Dyer is a talented illustrator and street artist who communicates his message using a psychedelic style and creates colorful, striking pieces in public spaces.
Finding your illustration style
The possibilities in digital illustration are endless and will only grow further as artists continue bringing their ideas to life through illustration designs.
Finding your illustration style is an exciting journey, but it takes some time.
One individual artist might experiment with a few styles and never commit to one. But having a distinct style you've homed in on can be an advantage in finding work and growing your career as an illustrator, as brands and fans will develop a taste for that particular style and keep coming back.
Know yourself
This might sound a bit "self-help,” but the more in tune you are with your authentic self and what makes you unique, the easier it will be to tap into an individual style.
Find what you enjoy
Your style should be something you enjoy! You should be inspired and itching to create your art. Take the time to research and explore so you can find what you enjoy.
Find what you're good at
What you like and are good at might be two different things. This is the frustration of the creative process. Don't try to force yourself into a style just because you think it's cool. Allow yourself to be honest with what you're good at, and then hone your skills so you can become brilliant at it!
Experiment
Finding your illustration style will take experimenting with a variety of styles to get a feel for what you're good at.
Practice
It makes perfect, right? Once you have a better idea of which illustration style resonates most with you, practice it until you perfect it — which might take forever, but you'll improve with each artwork.
Get inspired by others
Find and follow your favorite artists for inspiration. Creativity is a community; we all bounce off and inspire one another as long as you know how to stay true to your unique style without being too influenced by your peers and colleagues.
Share and get feedback
As we've just said, creativity is a community! Share your illustrations on social media, ask friends and colleagues for feedback, or send us your stuff. The Linearity Curve crew loves to see what digital artists are creating.
Test different illustration styles with Linearity Curve
Now that you've explored all these illustration styles examples, are you ready to create your own?
Do you want to craft minimalist illustrations for the marketing team's social media posts? Or perhaps whimsical illustrations to add a touch of fantasy to your next product ad?
If you first sketch your ideas on paper, you can take a picture of them and import them into Linearity Curve to vectorize them. You can then use the Pen tool to trace over the lines of your sketch. Or use the Auto Trace feature to speed up your illustration process.
Start practicing different illustration art styles with Linearity Curve for free.
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Lavinia Aparaschivei
Lavinia is a Content Editor and Marketing Manager at Linearity, with expertise in video content, social media, and brand development. She writes about how to drive content and marketing success.
