CLICKBANK

Brand Illustrations

Proposal and direction of replacing photography with SVG illustrations that better captured the brand image.

The Need for Imagery

The platform could be bland or un-interesting looking at times, but the business had consistently found it was difficult to find quality stock photography or graphics that represented their industry and brand. There were also concerns that high quality photography could make pages load unnecessarily slow.

Making the app a delightful experience was important, so I chose custom SVG illustration as a fun and flexible means of displaying the complexity of the business.

ClickBank had historically used illustration on the platform, so it was a fun way to modernize something the client may have seen before; making a sore spot into a beauty spot.

Illustrations have the ability to be more “metaphorical”, in a way that can be more difficult or goofy to capture in photography.
Use case was platform specific and only the app would be limited to illustration because most photography will be user-generated content (product images, avatars, order form images).
Illustration is easier to use in lower file size formats and SVG - saving important page load time.

Why Illustration?

Illustration Concepts

Working with the product team, we segmented the groups that we wanted the images to appeal to and the goals we generally thought these groups would recognize themselves as having. ClickBank had also in the past had very male dominated marketing which we wanted to balance out.

Vendors / Affiliates

Makes money as an entrepreneur online, works from anywhere (home, beach, on the go), self-promoting, hustle-type, considers themself special/unique/elite/superior/king/queen, interested in automation, takes positive risks, successful/success oriented, likes modern/sharp/crisp/cool.

Managed Accounts w/ Team

Some vendors are more than a single individual, they sometimes also have workers who may manage their day to day account functions.

Hustle-type, more flexible than an average office job, not as self-promoting - more about teamwork, success-oriented.

User Personas to Characterize

Vendors / Affiliates

Being at the top with other’s admiring them.
A fast paced entrepreneur racing ahead to a prize/success.
Cool, powerful women starting an online business.

Managed Accounts w/ Team

Successfully adding products to platform.
Working together as a team for success.
Flexible, casual job managing daily tasks.

User Goals to Empathize

Revisions & User Testing

Three User Groups

General Audience (Not Associated with Clickbank)
Our Call Center Support Staff
Active Account Users of Large Clients

Questions (Sampling)

Which image makes you feel the most confident?
Which image projects “success” the most?
Which image do you associate most with ClickBank?

We hired an illustration agency to turn the concepts into finalized images. We had a few sessions to correct style and adjust some design choices, such as the character clothing and what kinds of e-commerce verticals were being shown.

After the first revisions, we ran user testing with several groups and collected feedback for our final round of revisions to this pilot group of illustrations.

User Feedback Highlights

Positive

Words: Confidence, Success, Powerful, Goals, Achieving, Victory, Motivating
“Teamwork is important and it shows teamwork.”
“Active and fun team that gets things done.”
“People that are here to help me through the steps”
“Reminds me of grinding since the guy is running up the stairs”
“One step at a time you can achieve great things.”
“Women working together”
“There's good representation, which makes me feel included”
“Like a contest – it is exciting because of the image.”
Many Positive Comments About Diversity

Negative

“It's not bad but the image is less exciting”
“Cool but it doesn’t look serious”
“It's ok but it seems to me more outdoorsy”
“Seems like these questions are all about the pretty graphics - and frankly I don't even look at those. I'm focused on getting the job done when I log into clickbank”
“Somehow all the others make it feel the people in the images don't really care about me. Someone is using their iPad, someone is busy running.”