30 illustrations challenge in Figma
Figma is a web-based design tool with real-time collaboration. But is Figma only used for UI design? or Prototype? what if we use it for creating illustrations. I started exploring Figma by creating simple, flat, minimal illustration and many more.
Getting started
It all started when I was traveling to another city leaving behind my laptop, thinking of enjoying my holiday without any fear of work. In the middle of the trip, I got a call from my sister as she needed my help in some illustrations for her college event. I totally perturbed on what to do next, because for making the illustrations I used to work in Adobe illustrator only. I was stuck since I neither have the laptop nor software at that time. So I borrowed one that has the basic configuration and started looking for online design tools. It was that time when I stumbled upon Figma and from that very day, I never looked back. So I decided to take up the challenge of creating at least 30 illustrations in Figma in order to explore this tool.
Creative Process
Figma is an amazing tool, with the use of basic shapes and the right techniques we can create some good illustrations. It provides easy manipulation and is quite smooth and fast.
For Illustrations, I broke my creative process down into three steps:-
Step 01|Look for Inspiration: Design Inspiration is around every corner of life. Once I start picking up on those little details, it’s easy to translate them into whatever I’m working on. Most of my artwork is a mixture of real-life inspiration and creative ideas available on Pinterest, Dribbble, Behance, etc.
“Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent.” — Jim Jarmusch
Step 02|Sketch Ideas: After collecting the ideas for artwork, I broke the composition into basic shapes and then drew it with a pencil tool. Once you get familiar with making a real-life object with basic shapes instead of using the pencil tool, you will be able to make the more complicated illustration.
Step 03|Create Illustrations: I started with minimal artwork and later on, I added texture, patterns and blending mode. I never thought of the capability of Figma for illustration, but I give it a try and came up with the following amazing stuff!
I started with minimal illustrations. These are composed of the pen tool and line art. Trying the tools with these illustrations was making me more proficient with the software. Since I am a big fan of colors so I created the color palette for my next illustrations to be made. To become more prominent I tried exploring more editing tools and really enjoying the process, below is another set of artworks.
These illustrations are created with basic shapes and edit tool, we can use edit object to manipulate the node according to requirement. Multiple Selection tool was also a great way of cutting shapes and create a new shape. We can also create patterns and use them as pattern fill.
After understanding the patterns, I tried my hands on Folk art which turned out quite well. I played with abstract patterns and line art, and then came up with the following artworks.
Benefits of the challenge
- No more dependency on a single tool for creating the illustration.
- When it comes to challenging myself, I have a more disciplined routine.
- Enjoy learning new possibilities and Measure my growth.
I hope from the next time you also explore Figma for creating illustrations.
This is my first article, I just started to get into writing so I’m sorry about any typos whatsoever. Thank you for reading ☺
Special thanks to Kanika Sharma for her help with this article.
*Note: Illustration reference is taken from Pinterest, Dribbble, Behance, etc.
