Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps came to Jolby to develop an brand illustrative asset library filled with life and purpose. Included were illustrations of people, accessories, places, patterns and icons—all of which come together to help the team at Mercy continue to communicate their initiatives around the globe.

ROLES

Illustration
Design
Asset Library

Mercy Corps illustrated people and their heights in relation to each other

Mercy Corps illustrated animals, objects, and people, with their heights in relation to each other

Mercy Corps illustrated objects and their heights in relation to each other

Scalable Illustration Assets

This library was created to be remixed and repurposed by the Mercy Corps creative team. Everything was designed on a scaling grid which stretches across the illustration asset library, allowing people to easily switch objects in their hands, expressions, hairstyles, and more. This included the height and body shape of people of all ages.

Scalable Illustration Assets

Mercy Corps illustrated people and background options

Design Process & Exploration

Our initial explorations were focused on the people. The people illustrated in this library represent the people that Mercy Corps has aided throughout the years. They are simple, yet distinctive. Small details, unique accessories, and movement bring each person to life.

Design Process & Exploration

We asked Mercy Corps and ourselves, how would their silhouettes affect the messaging? How much emotion was too much emotion? How can we represent cultures across the globe respectfully?

Design Process & Exploration

We asked Mercy Corps and ourselves, how would their silhouettes affect the messaging? How much emotion was too much emotion? How can we represent cultures across the globe respectfully?

Before & After

In the end, we discovered a unique illustration style that would be able to scale with people, animals, places, and objects. The illustration style also revealed how we would build scenes that would seamlessly allow for assets to be dropped into a variety of scenes.

Mercy Corps illustrated background scenes

Places

The Place illustrations in the library were created to show the backdrops of some of the areas where they work. While low in detail, they make up for it in color and shape, creating sketches of regions to use as backdrops for brand communication. Place illustrations bring in a lot of color! The extensions to the color palette used throughout Place assets bring in rich sky tones, ground color, foliage tones, and options for different background colors.

Places

Mercy Corps illustrated people and their heights in relation to each other, limited colors

Mercy Corps shape breakdown of a person illustration

Posing People

Each asset was created to hinge, move, and be swappable for other assets in the library. This included what the people are wearing, their hairstyles, hands, and footwear.

Mercy Corps arm movement person illustration

Illustrative Icons & Patterns

Simple, easy to understand while paired with many different languages. Each pattern swatch was inspired by the clothing worn in various photos from the Mercy Corps archive across the world. While no pattern here is directly replicated, each holds a subtle hint to the countries that they work in.

Focal Shapes

People are the centerpoint of MC and their historic photo library is incredible. These large shapes of color serve as a small, abstract background for our People to be placed in front of. The Focus Shapes help to provide a sense of place or purpose when using a person on a piece of communication. For instance, the shape of hills from an Urban Place illustration when placed behind a person asset can give them a sense of place without over-complicating.