Anamcara expands their use of illustration for distinctive branding

Among our new clients in the last couple of years, Annelie Ajami stands out as someone who always wants to push things a little further than anyone expected. That is true not only of her business acumen but also her approach to branding, which has always been to strive for the most eye-catching visual possible.

I particularly love a creative brief where a primary motivation is to create something people haven’t seen before in that particular sector. Since we first launched the project back in 2021, Anamcara has used illustration at the heart of the branding and web design we’ve completed for them. We proposed working with Spanish artist Jesús Sotés and as a creative partnership it’s been a great success.

Excitingly, we’ve recently expanded the project and added in a set of new drawings Jesús has completed.

On your bike

All the drawings we’ve worked on to date have focussed on entrepreneurs and small businesses. The idea was to showcase the sort of company who would use a product that Anamcara invests in but… perhaps with a retro or surrealist spin on it.

In this first case, we introduce the bicycle repair shop. I’ve shown above the application of the drawing on the website alongside the full piece itself. All of Jésus’s drawings have elements of the surreal about them and I can’t help feeling that makes the choice of him to work on the project all the more laudable. The downright bizarre way that oil, car horns and bicycle pumps fly through the air get the point across but raise a smile.

It’s this feeling of the unusual that sets this aside from other of our financial services web design projects – there’s a lightness of touch and playful attitude that investors and potential partners immediately enjoy. It only goes to show that while an attitude to responsibility needs to be serious, a playful attitude goes a long way. It’s memorable, enjoyable and ‘sticks’ – people talk about it and thus the company – like all the best brand projects.

Head in a book

Next up is our Anamcara bookstore. Books seem to grow wild, with leaves and branches wrapping around an imaginary archway, with our heroine front and centre, utterly unbothered. A fairytale wildness about this piece creates a bookworm’s paradise, which reminds me of many of the entrepreneurs we work with.

There’s something inevitably offbeat about an entrepreneur. By definition thinking off the page and into the realms of the unknown, some of our most memorable jobs involve design for startups. It offers a total counterpoint to our corporate work: by definition a startup needs a different energy and almost inevitable irreverence. In a way this defines why Anamcara decided to use illustration for distinctive branding and why it really works here.

Towering above

The original idea behind our final new illustration was to depict a DAO – ‘decentralized autonomous organization’. Rather than existing within a bubble, Anamcara’s projects inevitably involve many people to reach an end result. So this drawing was inspired by the idea of people coming together in a town hall. However, there’s no traditional town hall here, rather a tower is being built by all the characters that appeared in the other illustrations.

Many different, brilliant minds coming together could well sum up what Anamcara is all about. Essentially a central team working alongside inventors and innovators to help small business run better. And what better way of explaining that symbolically than drawings made by hand? Artificial intelligence can only go so far: creativity both in business and using clever visual ideas like illustration for distinctive branding will define the innovators of the future.

Consider using illustration for distinctive branding

If you’re interested in a different or unusual approach to branding your business, we’d be interested in your brief. Whatever industry you work in, we can help you achieve that, working within or beyond your current brand imaginatively. The way Anamcara used illustration for distinctive branding could inspire all sorts of new ideas…

Call us on 020 7351 4083 or email direct to tell us all about it.

Find out more about the Anamcara project

Our portfolio page on the project

The background to the launch of the project

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