6 Websites that use Illustration Brilliantly

If you want your website to be on-trend, bringing in some illustration is the perfect way to keep things looking bang up-to-date. It pays to do things properly, though, and software development to remember that illustration's more than just decoration.

The best use of illustration online can be seen when the designers have clearly put a lot of thought into how it can work with – and even enhance – the site's content or a brand's message. Here are six recent examples that have wowed us with their effective use of illustration.

1. Otis Studios

Otis Studios makes music – for adverts, films, games, and dance floors – and also specializes in sound design. The studio prides itself on writing, recording and re-recording until everybody's stoked, and its passion for music and sound comes across in the very first thing you see when you hit its site.

Created by Feral, it opens with an illustrated splash screen stating in rough brush strokes that UX-UI, accompanied by scratchy ink sketches of music gear that we're not going to even attempt to name. The real kicker is how the elements in the composition are arranged in 3D and move in response to the mouse, bringing the page to life and making it near-impossible not to scroll down to find out more.

2. The Food Dispensary

Canberra's Food Dispensary produces a tiny range of ready-made meals that are a cut above the rest. It describes itself as a kitchen of real people working with real ingredients and goes to great pains to point out that everything it produces is handmade, from its pasta to its ricotta and pancetta.

The Food Dispensary's site, built by Swell, reflects that handmade ethos; a swish parallax site peppered with mouth-watering photography, it's grounded with simple pencil sketches of ingredients on a background reminiscent of rough, recycled paper.

03. USELESS

Judicious use of illustration can really help get your message across quickly, and USELESS, built by Nice and Serious, does an excellent job in that regard. It uses illustration to highlight the problem of single-use plastic, opening with a torrent of plastic cups, bottles and carrier bags that pile up at the bottom of the page (and that you can try to shift with your cursor), accompanied by horrifying stats on the amount of disposable plastic thrown away in the UK every year.

04. A Map of Myth, Legend & Folklore

In an online world where it's all too easy to just bang in a boring Google map, we love this beautiful illustrated map of myth, legend, and folklore from English Heritage.

It's an engrossing guide to some of England's historic sites and the fascinating stories behind them, showcasing a small sample of the 400 sites in English Heritage's care, and also featuring local myths and legends as well as upcoming events across the country.

5. Sparky

Sparky is a marketing agency that promises to provide a fresh set of eyes for powerful brands to help them maximise moments, elevate experiences and ignite innovation, and its new site by Angle2 uses illustration to really drive that point home.

The opening page is scattered with pairs of adorable cartoon eyes in various styles that animate when you mouse over them; a neat gimmick that doesn't feel forced, and which should encourage visitors to scroll down and discover how Sparky can help their brands.

6. Finding ctrl

With the World Wide Web having celebrated its 30th birthday in March, and the internet itself coming up for its 50th in October, Nesta has put together Finding ctrl:, an 'online visions' book for the European Commission's Next Generation Internet initiative.

It's a weighty subject, and it's made more inviting thanks to a site built by ToyFight that brings in illustrations and particle-based 3D objects to set the tone for each article and provide visual interest.