Am I the only one getting tired by all the illustration based landing pages for MVPs?

Once this trend is over, there will be a new trend that everyone copies. This has been happening since I first got into web design as a kid in the late 90s… flash sites, web 2.0 reflections and drop shadows, skeuomorphism, flat design, these new illustrations, and probably a dozen other trends I'm forgetting.

YES. God I was just thinking this today.

Browsing through Dribbble this morning and it was like... 'are there any actual designers here?' Literally everyone's website looks the same.

Also... lay off the purple guys. It's played already.

(My two cents of course. If you're already sporting a handful of Undraw illustrations and a purple landing page ... I'm just one guy spouting off) ;)

I think it's part of a trend. unDraw (https://undraw.co/illustrations) I think is where many people get their illustrations as they are free to use and opensource. If someone doesn't have any screenshots yet and want to get a visually appealing picture up there, these are really nice and convey a good message. I think if I had to choose between illustrations and stock photos for a landing page, I would probably choose illustrations.

It's an old story, and it happens all the time that a particular design trend gets viral across the web (especially when everyone wants to emulate the big guys. See Slack, Spotify, Asana etc.. in this case).
In my opinion, there are not dangerous trends, but it's important to understand that a design style should suit the product core and not vice-versa. So before you pick some fancy character on your landing page, ask yourself: Do they add clarity to my product? Do they reinforce the product message? Are they necessary? Etc..
Anyway, I see this particular trend almost over, in favor of something cleaner and more 3Dish (like https://pitch.com/).

AGH, YES.

Does it well: basecamp.com

Does it poorly: intercom.io

Most illustrations communicate absolutely nothing about the product.

Not sure if it's the coincidence - I've been seeing it since the ICO things has started... Every ICO website looks super flashy with isometric design and cool illustrations.

Could be wrong too - seems like the art is being appreciated by majority of products and it brings kind of coolness as well as an empathetical factor that lets users be in sync. Like different kinds of illustrations on various screens to depict the beginning, progress and success of a work flow. Have seen it with Atlassian, Trello and many more.

And thanks to Katerina and other folks at Undraw in providing opensource illustrations.

I can agree to this while also being guilty of doing it. However, this is temporary on my end and I plan to properly include actual shots of my product in place of the illustrations. Likely in the coming week or two.

I personally believe you convert a higher number of visitors to signups when you actually give them a look into your product, I’m personally hesitant to signup for anything if there are no screenshots of the actual product on the landing page.

I agree that the illustration style many startups are using is too similar (likely thanks to undraw.co). But I think illustration can be an interesting way to differentiate your brand if your industry isn't already saturated with illustration and you're creative about your approach.

Case in point, my own company's website (shameless plug — I just relaunched with a illustration-heavy design, and I'm excited about it): https://musicformakers.com

Mailchimp is another great example. Illustration? Yes. Same as all the rest? Nope. And that makes the brand more memorable and more human, in my opinion.

P.S. I'm also guilty of using purple in my brand colors 😅

Everyone using the same illustrations is the bigger issue I think. It stands out a mile once you're used to seeing it and instantly looks uninspired. I had a similar feeling with the original Font Awesome where everyone was using it.

Agreed! Most websites are following the same template of the most popular ones, and it's a little boring. I like highly graphical designs like the ones they do for video games or movies.

100% agree, I want to see the app, even better yet a zero friction way to demo it.

I think the problem is not the use of illustration, but the fact that a lot of them are based on Invision open sourced illustrations. Another thing to remember is that the internet is huge and we are in a small bubble of indie hackers where those illustrations are more prevalent.

Trends are called trends fro a reason - they pass

Guilty startup here ✋

One reason why we don't really have a lot of screenshots is because they're hard to maintain when you're iterating quickly. It's much easier to put up a product page explaining your value which lets people find you and sign up. So, yes we're certainly losing some potential customers, but we're also saving time not having to update the Marketing content too often (that's also why it's a good idea not to have too many screenshots in your docs).

Then as the product gets mature it becomes easier to know what resonates with the public and add the right screens/feature highlights.

Hope that makes sense.

Haha! So true. But I'm just as bad as the others.

I'd say a lot of it boils down to, it's easy to do, and it doesn't look bad. It doesn't distract and should draw people into the CTA.

I do think screenshots can be good too, but the issue with those is that they need to look clean and it may be really hard to choose what to show.

Could you give an examples of both illustration and a simple UI sketch landing pages? I'm a little more clear on the illustration one but when I think "simple ui sketch" i keep seeing that as an illustration as well.

Hmmm I'm not so sure.

I think there's space for both.

With PostPerk for example, I'm currently putting together a few illustrations for the landing page. Screenshots wouldn't really make sense, because how do you communicate our key value ("we partner your brand up with other, complimentary brands to reach each others customers") via a screenshot?

In that case (and others), an illustration is just more useful.

Yeah - it's common. But it's also smart.

Customers/people like familiarity.

Jakob's UX law:

Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know.

This comment was deleted 7 years ago