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BBC Maestro · Illustration

Illustrations for BBC Maestro's website and email newsletter — giving human warmth and a made-by-hand feel to a product that sells on trust in the people who teach.

RoleIllustration
ClientBBC Maestro
SurfacesWebsite · Newsletter
MediumDigital illustration
A BBC Maestro web page: the BBC Maestro logo and MENU up top, and a hand-drawn line illustration of a bald man unwrapping a gift with little sparkles around it.
The illustration living on the BBC Maestro site — carrying the moment photography doesn't cover.

The context

BBC Maestro sells online courses led by well-known names — people whose face and reputation are the product. That puts illustration in a specific place: it can't compete with the instructors, and it can't become generic decoration. It has to give warmth, rhythm and personality to the spaces between the photography.

A BBC Maestro 'Forgot your password?' screen: a line drawing of a worried person beside a cloud of scrambled letters and symbols, with the caption 'It's okay, it happens.'
The illustration doing product work: an error moment — “forgot your password?” — turned light instead of frustrating.

The work

I made illustrations for two surfaces with different demands. On the website, they accompany and guide — supporting reading, marking sections, carrying moments that photography doesn't cover. In the newsletter, the job changes: email is a hostile environment (narrow widths, unpredictable rendering, most people reading on a phone in seconds), so the illustration has to communicate quickly and survive at small size.

Four BBC Maestro spot illustrations in one line-drawn set: a person holding an envelope with a notification, someone at a computer clicking Send, a person daydreaming by a starry window, and a face beside a scatter of cutlery and sparkles.
A slice of the set — the same hand, cast and humour repeated piece after piece.

The idea holding it together

The same hand has to make the website and the email read as one thing. So I treated the set as a system, not as loose pieces: consistent line, palette and level of detail, tuned to each surface's density. On the site, more room and detail; in the newsletter, the same language squeezed to the essential. That's what makes the illustration feel like part of the brand rather than something pasted on top.

A single BBC Maestro spot illustration: a person at a desk with a mug, a large halftone thought-cloud above them full of stars, a cursor and small doodles.
One piece on its own and still unmistakable — it's the consistency between them that makes the brand, not any single drawing.

TL;DR

Illustrations for BBC Maestro's website and newsletter. Because the product sells on trust in its instructors, the illustration gives warmth and personality without competing with them — and works as one system: the same hand on the website (more detail) and in email (squeezed to the essential and legible at small size).

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