Illustration
To create consistency across the Chewy Brand, I collaborated with the illustration team to develop a comprehensive Illustration Style Guide - a scalable framework used by internal and external illustrators.
This guide established a unified visual language rooted in how pet parents see their companions: full of personality, charm, & individuality. The goal was to ensure stylistic consistency across all touchpoints while still allowing room for personality & storytelling.
Illustration & Brand Philosophy
The illustration system for Chewy was grounded in a simple idea: Pets aren't just animals - they're family members with distinct personalities.
We built a visual style that captured playfulness without feeling childish, emotional warmth without being overly sentimental, and expressive features that reflected how pet parents uniquely view their pets. This style was then used effectively across all forms of media across the print and digital space - also being mindful of "dark mode" feasibility on the Chewy app.
Illustration & Animation
After the illustration style was established, I independently began exploring the framework for how this could all translate into animation. This exploration included movement principles aligned with proportion exaggeration, expression timing & emotional beats, guidelines for maintaining brand integrity in motion, & establishing how secondary elements & props behave in animated space. This ensured that motion graphics felt like a natural extension of our illustration style, not an afterthought.
Through concepting, sketching, and discussion a scaleable illustration framework was built for use across teams. This enabled faster onboarding for new illustrators as well as strengthening brand consistency across digital, marketing, and product surfaces wherever illustrations & animations are used.
Credits:
CHEWY
HILLARY CIANCIOSI, DEB FULOP, CHRISTOPHER MOSIER