Client: Tauschwohnung.com, a flat-swapping platform serving users across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

I was asked by the customer to create a set of seven empty-state illustrations for Tauschwohnung’s web platform. The goal was to make visuals that feel warm, friendly, and relatable, while matching the platform’s tone, brand colors, and clean flat-vector style. Each illustration needed to help guide users with simple storytelling and work well on different screen sizes. It was also important that the illustrations were UI-friendly, fitting naturally within the layout without distracting from the content. The main challenge was to balance function and feeling by using light, situation-based images that gently guide users without being too abstract or confusing.

Visual Direction & Style Development I started by diving into Tauschwohnung’s tone, layout, and overall brand feel to get a clear sense of direction. From there, I put together an initial style draft, focusing on line weight, color choices for light mode, and friendly, character-based scenes that would set the tone for the rest of the illustrations.

Sketching & Exploration Started with quick doodles on paper to explore ideas, then developed character-driven scenes digitally, focused on visually communicating key actions like searching and browsing.

Continued developing sketches.

Refined the style and applied color.

Digital Illustration Refined each sketch into scalable vector artwork, optimized for both desktop and mobile UI placements.

Consistency & Color System Integrated the brand’s color palette while allowing for future adaptability.