Balance App Illustration System
The Mind Company • Illustration & Graphic Design
TIMELINE
2019-2024
TEAM
Design Manager Marius Libman
OVERVIEW
In March of 2019, I was hired by Elevate Labs as their first full-time, in-house illustrator. One the primary tasks of the role involved creating illustrations to represent new meditations, known as Plans and Singles, for the Balance Meditation & Sleep app. Using a few illustrations that had already been created as visual references, I became deeply familiar with the visual identity and brand ethos of the Balance app and helped expand our offering of meditations over the course of five years.
My responsibilities would grow to include designing for lifecycle marketing as well as social media. Throughout the years, I developed an agile illustration asset library consisting of many of my illustrations that covered topics from mindfulness to productivity to parenting.
ROLE
Illustrator & Senior Graphic Designer
Cover Illustrations
The cover illustrations for Balance’s Plans & Singles needed to look cohesive as well as quickly convey a meditation’s contents. I was the sole illustrator for the Balance app, making it my responsibility to hold our visuals to a high standard.
For new Single illustrations, I researched and gathered inspiration for iconography that could represent the core concept. I sketched initial designs in Photoshop and created mockups in Figma for stakeholders to review and revise based on feedback.
Lesson Illustrations
Our meditation Plans included 10 days of consecutive meditation lessons centered around a theme. Before each audio meditation, users were served relevant content comprised of meditation tips, fun facts, and illustrations.
One of the most recent Plans I worked on was the Parent Plan. One of our chief concerns was representing parents and children of all ages and genders. As we prided ourselves on the personalization features of our meditations, I wanted to ensure the visuals were inclusive as well.
Select flows from the Parent Plan meditation lessons. One of the key tenets for our approach to illustration was that they had to be additive, not merely decorative. They needed to enhance the user experience in a substantial way.
Excerpts from the Work Stress, Productivity, and Embrace Change plans. In total, I worked on 24 Plans, creating 450+ unique illustrations.
Illustration Library
During my time at Elevate Labs, I created an expansive illustration library for the Balance app and its associated marketing and social media channels. My illustrations were used in weekly emails, daily social media posts, in-app screens, app store mockups, and more. Many illustrations depicted scenes related to sleep, meditation, focus, relationships, relaxation, stress, and other topics we often addressed in our content. I continuously updated our Illustration Library Figma file with new assets, tagging and categorizing appropriately, supporting our ever-growing component library.
