Illustration style

Making simple sensational – to convey a feeling of clarity, simplicity and directness, the HARTMANN brand works with full surface colors without gradients.

Appearance

Healthcare for everyone

HARTMANN has set our to become a leading player in global healthcare and a driving force to constantly advance healthcare for all. Healthcare for all means healthcare for everyone. We updated our illustration style to reflect this inclusiveness, to feel more grounded in realism, and have increased the level of detail to accommodate this approach.
Collage of various illustrations, such as that of a man holding a tablet in his hands.

Principles

Illustration of two women.
Plain and simple
The overall look of HARTMANN illustrations is friendly, open and inviting. Our characters come across as kind, attentive and approachable. They are people of Today always on a mission to help, care and protect. Our style is 2-dimensional and flat.
Illustration of a microscope.
Be colorful
Make use of colour, but don‘t lose sight of your message. HARTMANN Dark Blue and Bright Blue are always present in any scene, however little. Ensure sufficient contrast between fore- and background. While white is the preferred colour for backgrounds, a light grey also works well.
Illustration of a doctor examining a patient.
Tell a story
Combine characters and object into complex scenes. Also try out background shapes when building a scene. Shapes can create focus and context. Please note, that the ellipse must not be used for this purpose.

Don't use the brand ellipse in illustrations

The brand ellipse is a unique element coming directly from the brand itself and should not be used in illustrations to any extent. If a shape as a backdrop is needed, select from a range of shapes from the illustration guidelines and toolkit.

Illustrations vs. icons

The demands of the HARTMANN brand on display and explanatory graphics are large and diverse. The boundary between illustration and iconography is fluid. In general, the deciding factor is the level of emotionality and complexity.

Emotion

Sometimes it's not just about explaining a fact but also communicating emotion to generate greater acceptance. In this case, we use illustrations instead of iconography.

Complexity

In most cases, complexity is the main theme. If too much content is lost by using reduced icons, we use illustrations instead of icons.

Comparison of a hand-washing icon with an illustration showing hand washing.

Colors

Basic Rule

All colors of an illustration must be developed from the brand color scheme. But a reduced amount of colors should be used, concentrating on the HARTMANN blue tones.

Skin tones

Our goal is to build diverse, inclusive illustrations that represent HARTMANN‘s different audiences. Therefore we have in addition to our branding colours and our eight accent colors, four skin tones especially for character illustrations.
Illustration of people with different skin colors.
A table with graphic details for different skin colors.

Grayscale

Our neutral color range is used for light background tones and to give more contrast to light objects on a white background – using darker shades of gray. Ensure sufficient contrast between foreground and background.

A table showing different shades of gray.

Toolkit

If you create new illustrations, first take a look at the illustration guidelines and toolkit which are available separately from the brand identity guidelines. The document contains all important information for creating new illustrations and a ready-to-use toolkit. The illustration guidelines and toolkit is divided into the following four topics.

All files are created in RGB color mode and should be converted to CMYK for printing!

A graphic representation of the different HARTMANN colors.
1. Basics
Choosing colors, icons and shapes.
Illustration of a mother holding the hand of her daughter.
2. People
Simple toolkit for creating a wide range of characters.
Illustration of a doctor examining a patient.
3. Scenes
Create compelling scenes and focused compositions.
Illustration of different medical objects like pills and disinfectant.
4. Objects
A collection of typical objects and concepts from medical and healthcare.

Avatar design

For illustrations we do not show a specific face or facial details. The demands on an avatar are different. To get into a personal conversation with the user, the avatar has to be more emotional than other illustrations. Due to this, it is allowed to show the avatar's face and different postures to help interaction with the end customer. The requirements for colors and simplicity on the previous pages are still valid here.
An illustration that shows how avatars are designed at HARTMANN.

See also

For further information get in touch

HARTMANN Branding Support

Please email us at branding.support@hartmann.info