PROJECT: WEBSITE ILLUSTRATIONS
CLIENT: 8NOTES.COM

8Notes.com offers free sheet music, lessons and resources for musicians.

OBJECTIVE

To create an extensive set of illustrations for use across the 8Notes website, to signpost sections relating to different instruments, styles and categories of music as well as lessons and resources. There were around 70 illustrated tiles at the final count!

The client was looking for a style which was colourful, fun and friendly but without feeling too childish. The illustrations were to have a wide visual appeal as the website is used by a range of ages - from school children and music teachers to older people of retirement age.

I was also asked to consult on styling for the website.

Pictured below are a selection of the illustration tiles I created, all using colours from the vibrant palette I developed for the project.

INSTRUMENTS

A selection of some of the instruments…

Instrument Groups

Brass, Classroom, Mixed Group, Plucked Strings, Strings and Wind… It was fun putting the instruments together in playful compositions!

OTHER ILLUSTRATED TILES

Some of the illustrations relate to styles of music or other categories, rather than being instrument related.
A few examples pictured below: Rock & Pop, Jazz, New Music, Film, Lessons and Metronome Resource

TEMPLATES

There are also many different categories and music for different combinations and numbers of instruments. To add flexibility, I created a number of templates for the client to use, which they can adapt themselves, adding different instruments as required…

PROCESS

The illustrations were to be instrumental (excuse the pun!) in the 8Notes website redesign. Justifiably, the client wanted to be completely certain that the work I was going to produce would fit with the vision he had for the website, and so before committing to the full project going ahead, we agreed that I would do a small amount of work as an initial test. This initial stage included developing a suitable style and colour palette and creating 3 sample illustrations of different instruments.

This initial stage went well, and I was pleased to get the go ahead to roll out the full suite of illustrations.

There were around 70 illustration tiles in the end, with more instruments and categories being added to my list as the project progressed. I tended to work in batches, firstly creating sketches for a number of instruments, showing these to the client for approval, and then working them up as final artwork.

Pictured below are some of the sketches I produced for individual illustration tiles.

CLIENT FEEDBACK

 “ Thank you so much again for your wonderful illustrations, I love them and so does everyone else who sees them. I think it's really brought exactly the freshness and style to the site I was dreaming of ”

- David Bruce | Founder, 8Notes.com

Do you play an instrument? - If not, why not take a little look at 8notes.com, I’m sure you’d find something useful !

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