Custom Illustrations vs Illustration Libraries

Developers should learn or use custom illustrations when building products that require strong visual identity, such as branding-heavy websites, mobile apps with playful interfaces, or educational platforms needing clear explanatory graphics meets developers should use illustration libraries to accelerate ui development, ensure visual consistency across projects, and reduce design overhead when building applications that require decorative or functional graphics. Here's our take.

Custom Illustrations

Nice Pick

Developers should learn or use custom illustrations when building products that require strong visual identity, such as branding-heavy websites, mobile apps with playful interfaces, or educational platforms needing clear explanatory graphics

Pros

• They are particularly valuable for startups aiming to differentiate themselves, projects targeting creative audiences, or applications where visual storytelling enhances user engagement and comprehension, such as in onboarding flows or feature explanations
• Related to: ui-design, graphic-design

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

Illustration Libraries

Developers should use illustration libraries to accelerate UI development, ensure visual consistency across projects, and reduce design overhead when building applications that require decorative or functional graphics

Pros

• They are particularly valuable in web development for creating engaging landing pages, dashboards, and marketing sites, as well as in mobile apps where standardized icons improve user experience
• Related to: svg, css

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. Custom Illustrations is a tool while Illustration Libraries is a library. We picked Custom Illustrations based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

Custom Illustrations wins

Based on overall popularity. Custom Illustrations is more widely used, but Illustration Libraries excels in its own space.