Flat Character Design for Branding, Step by Step
This tutorial builds a flat-design concept character in Adobe Illustrator, the kind used on websites, landing pages and infographics to carry a brand’s message. Once you have one character and a set of elements in this style, you can reuse them across a project to build a consistent brand identity.
Before you draw
Gather inspiration first (sites like Freepik are good for flat-design references), and make a rough sketch so you know the pose and layout before opening Illustrator. If you may animate the character later, plan to keep hands and legs on separate layers so they can be moved in After Effects.
Step 1: Set the palette
Draw a rectangle and fill it with the first brand colour (the video uses the client’s corporate colours), then Alt-drag copies for each colour so you have a swatch strip to work from. You can lighten a colour by opening the Color Picker and raising only the Brightness, which keeps the same hue for a custom character skin tone.
Step 2: Build the figure from simple shapes
Start the head as an ellipse and reshape it with the Direct Selection Tool, pulling anchor points and rounding or pointing corners. Make the neck by Alt-dragging a copy, reflecting it and sending it back, then adding a shadow copy in a darker tone. Build the body, arms and legs as simple shapes in the same way. Keep everything flat and geometric.
Step 3: Line work with stroke profiles
Add detail lines with the Pen Tool and give them a variable-width stroke profile so they taper like ink rather than sitting at a constant weight. This is what lifts a flat character out of looking like plain clip art.
Step 4: Props and elements
Draw supporting objects in the same style, for example a paper rocket built from a few Pen Tool shapes in the brand colours, grouped and scaled to sit in the scene. Keep these elements in the same visual language so they work across the whole project.
Conclusion
The point of this style is consistency: simple shapes, a fixed palette and tapered line work, repeated across every character and icon, give a brand a recognisable look. Build one well and the rest of the set follows the same rules.
Links from the video
- Join the members-only content: https://bit.ly/3fEEvD4
- Members-only videos: https://bit.ly/3fJieDV
