Over the Winter term of 2024 from January to the end of April I worked at the CIHR as a web development Co-Op student. However, during the term, I was given the opportunity do some projects on the graphic design team, the icons below are the result of that work.
I designed and created over 30 icons and concepts for the CIHR, each meant to represent one of the many divisions that make up the institute as a whole. I decided to go with a clean and simple design inspired by Pokémon type badges, each of which has a white or black silhouette with a background in their own distinct colour. I eventually decided to add black outlines to help with definition as some colours such as yellow didn't offer enough contrast with the white to be visually accessible.
More options
I was asked to create a variety of design options for each division so that they could choose the one that they felt represented their organization best.
The 13 divisions are as follows; from left to right,
Infection and Immunity, Circulatory System Health, Public Health, Cancer, Health Institutes, Ageing, Nutrition, Genes, Child Development, Gender Health, Musculoskeletal Health, and Indigenous Health.
Process work
Some early sketches and designs created in Procreate for each of the icons. I designed and sent a lot of these to my supervisor to be approved before being vectorized.
Below you can see some examples of colour styles. If there should be outlines, rings, gradients and more were explored early in development. Ultimately, I settled on solid colour backgrounds with outlined icons as some of them didn't read as easily as pure silhouettes.
