CEAD Website Banner Illustration System

For the OCADU Centre for Emerging Artists & Designers (CEAD) website, I designed a cohesive set of text-free illustrated banners to support a page structure that is primarily text-based. The goal was to create a visual system that adds clarity without competing with page content, acting as a “tone-setter” for each section rather than a headline. Each banner uses minimal, symbolic scenes to translate CEAD’s services into simple visual metaphors: growth, entrepreneurship, guidance, hands-on learning, discovery, and opportunity. This system was designed to be accessible, inclusive, and future-facing, representing CEAD as a supportive platform where students and alumni can explore multiple pathways, build practical skills, and move from ideas to action.

Main Page - A layered stairscape represents CEAD as a hub with many pathways: students and alumni move through different routes, levels, and directions as their careers evolve.

Career Development - A stairway becomes a metaphor for career growth: progress happens step by step, not all at once.

Creative Entrepreneurship - This banner focuses on the “idea to invoice” journey through a single, simple scene.

Career Advising - Two hands meeting in the center represents advising as connection and support.

Career Launchers - A rocket launch is used as a clean, universal symbol for the transition from preparation to action.

CEAD Events and Opportunities - A map becomes a visual language for discovery: events and opportunities appear as destinations you can navigate toward.

Experiential Learning - This design centers on “learning by doing.” A raised pencil becomes a symbol of agency, hands-on practice, making, testing, and building skill through experience.

Tools and Resources - Binoculars are used to represent searching, scanning, and finding the right support at the right time.

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