Functions and information are said to be the basis of positive UX. Yet, are we all only about functions? Website or app users, blog readers, leads checking a landing page or shoppers on an e-commerce platform – all of them are first of all people, with not only logic to solve problems and fulfill needs but also emotions ruling their decisions. Is there one trick to rule all that stuff? Yes. Illustrations are your helping hand.

Today, we are launching Ouch, the collection of free vector illustrations for creators who don’t draw. These graphics will never leave your content boring. It’s just been released on Product Hunt, so welcome to join the discussion.

What Is Ouch?

Ouch! is another side project from the Icons8 team, dedicated to illustrations that give an elegant and trendy look to content and designs. It helps UX designers, content and marketing specialists to make their products look professional and eye-pleasing. Together with stock photos, icons, and music we released earlier, it is one more step to our big goal: building a design platform and changing the way people create things.

Why Do You Need Illustrations?

Bland and unattractive content is a big issue: it may waste all your efforts as users can pass by your website, app or email without paying attention. So, creators of digital products often experience the problem of boring content, for example:

• typical app screens feel dull and get users annoyed while waiting or getting error messages
• a blog article looks too long and hard without images
• a landing page doesn’t catch attention without graphics
• a website homepage has quite common looks and risks getting lost among competitors
• another “nothing special” and “who cares” email will not attract many leads, etc.

As illustrations are among top design trends now, more and more creators want to class up their products this way. Bright and catchy graphics solve a lot of problems at one stroke. Interface illustrations:

• are perceived faster than text so users may cover the key message quickly
• support a visual hierarchy of a page or screen
• strengthen the aesthetic and emotional appeal of the interface
• activate the psychology of color, shapes and visual metaphors
• are eye-catchy and draw users’ attention to the necessary details.

Applied to websites and mobile applications, vector illustrations become another functional element and only then a decoration.

Example of onboarding screens with illustrations from Ouch

What’s the Problem with Illustrations?

Getting quality illustrations may be a real challenge because:

• you need a professional skilled in drawing and digital art (or you have to be the one)
• vector graphics created for UX screens have to correspond to general requirements and peculiarities of interface design
• creating illustrations can be time-consuming and expensive.

These problems are not that easy to overcome if you are in a low budget or time crunch. What’s more, you may not know where to search for illustrators, how to explain to them what you need and how to estimate time or money needed for all that stuff. This is the perfect time for Ouch! to come into play.

How Does Ouch Help?

To support you, we have paid the top Dribbble artists (so you don’t have to). The result, for now, is the set of free vector illustrations in 14 styles for all typical UX screens and states, such as:

• Success
• List is empty
• Message sent
• Error
• Subscribed/Unsubscribed, etc.

You can download all of them free for a link. 

Or you can pay for even more. With the license, you will be able:

• not to use credits to us
• get vector source files and edit them as you like
• also get full access to our icons, photos, and music.

Now, it time for us to get feedback and analyze, how to make the project even better for our users. We invite you to tell us what you think here in comments or in the discussion on Product Hunt. Cheers!