From Concept to Creation: Visualizing Resolvve's Client Journey
May 10, 2023 | 8 min read
Detraform’s creative director Joel Blair and award winning illustrator Mayara Lista revisit their favourite collaboration.
Interview by Joel Blair | Illustrations by Mayara Lista for Resolvve
Detraform’s unique creative process makes the customer the hero of the story. Read how we work to develop charming illustrations that engage the website visitor with a relatable story.
Joel Blair: Tell me how you describe your style these days.
Mayara Lista: My style is colourful with dynamic shapes and poses. I enjoy creating different styles for each project, based on different references. I like to try new things and apply styles I'm inspired by whenever a new project comes. But I can see most of what I do is portrayed in a very dynamic way with action and very expressive poses. I love illustrating the human figure, and playing with colourful palettes.
Joel: That's a great description of your work.
Today I want to talk about our client Resolvve, the student mental health and online therapy startup out of Toronto. After Detraform completed the messaging and copywriting we started the illustration and design phase. The client had this great idea to do a Studio Ghibli style with the illustrations. How did you approach the character design process with that creative direction in mind?
Mayara: I love the reference to Ghibli style because I love the movies and I have grown up watching them and I'm still a big fan. It was challenging to try to go in this direction but also really fun. I tried to not to copy the style or the characters but to resemble them somehow using outlines for the characters, the shadow like they were animated cells, but also with very detailed and painted backgrounds. So the characters are highlighted above the background calling more attention to the characters like it would be in an animation. I also researched a lot of references from high school and universities students, their clothing and hair styles, to create every character in our story.
Joel: Yeah, the backgrounds you did for these were really special. I had a lot of fun doing the creative direction for some of these scenes. I remember for the university environments, we looked at all American colleges like Bowdoin campus in Maine, Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan and Mcgill in Montreal. In the first scene we've got some Jeffersonian architecture from the University of Virginia. I don't know if anybody spotted that but it's pretty accurate actually. I know you worked hard on the lighting and the way this background fades into a late afternoon haze.
Mayara: I really enjoyed this project because the greatest quality it has is that it tells a story with each illustration, like in the beginning the the boy looks really sad and lost. The other students are doing fine but he seems really shy and insecure. And as you scroll through the website you see him studying alone and looking for help. Eventually he learns to be more open with new people and make friends and it was really nice to imagine this story with your direction. I think the website visitor can connect to this story and understand what's happening in our character's journey.
Joel: My favourite scene for the first story is the meet-cute where our hero's crush drops her books. I also love the scene we finished the home page with, which was inspired by Goodwill Hunting. And I love the lighting you did in that scene too.
Mayara: Yeah, I love this atmosphere with this fading out, almost watercolour treatment we did, it's feels really peaceful for me. I really love the vibe of this environment.
Joel: I think there was a Studio Ghibli film that inspired this approach right?
Mayara: Yes, Only Yesterday. In the film, when the main character is remembering her childhood, the scenes gets like this fade out watercolour effect.
Joel: The first time I saw that effect was in the end credits to the Disney movie Jungle Cruise. I really leaned into that later on with project for Mike Ganino. I think it works really well on websites.
Mayara: Yeah, the transition works really great.
Joel: So the second story we told on this website was for younger students in high school which was targeted to parents looking to book therapy for their kid [shown on this page]. In the end, this was my favourite part of the website.
Here start out meeting a girl who is eating alone in the cafeteria while everybody else is with their friends having a laugh. Later she's looking longingly at the other girls palling around by the lockers. And then after she gets some online therapy from Resolvve, she learns to open up and starts to connect with the other students. In the end we've got this really fun scene in the A/V club inspired by the gang from Stranger Things. So that inspired the composition and the retro technology. I don't know if anybody else is noticing the details, but we have a lot of fun working these references in.
Mayara: I love this story because I love the opportunity to draw a group of girlfriends. Each of them have their own style and personality and I love to explore the style of clothes they would wear and the colour palettes. Portraying the friendships developing was really nice. And also this reference to Stranger Things in the last image was really fun to do. I love to do these drawings with vintage technology. So it was really fun.
Joel: Yeah, you did an amazing job in particular with the fashion and the styles that these girls are wearing. Were you thinking of US or Canadian styles or do you think what you created was relevant for Brazilian high school students too?
Mayara: I was thinking about the American high school movies I was watching in the 90s. In Brazil we we are not allowed to wear our street clothes in school. We are always in uniforms.
Joel: I love school uniforms, they feel very dreamy to me because we didn't have uniforms in my town growing up.
Mayara: But our uniforms in Brazil are not so cute! Most school uniforms here are just a generic white t-shirt with jeans.
Joel: That's funny, so I guess it was easier to express these characters personalities with, unrestricted fashion.
After we completed this project we decided to adjust our process a bit. We found that the illustrations often get better the further along we go into the project because we're leaning into the style more as we go along. So we decided we're not going to start with the first finished illustration on the website. To get better results, we'll start with one deeper into the website, and then come back and finish the first last. For Resolvve there was two or three different versions of the first illustrated scene. The season changed from Spring to Fall so you have to redo all those leaves!
Mayara: Yeah, I do remember that. This was the most challenging one to do because it was the first and we had so many details in the campus in the background, and we were not sure yet about the style yet. Once we got the the approval for this first one, the other illustrations were a lot easier.
Joel: Right. I remember Simon and Noah at Resolvve were really fun to work with, they were pretty excited about everything we shared.
Mayara: Yeah, they always agreed with our direction and sketches.
Joel: On the parents page, you originally sketched an image where the student and the therapist were on a sofa together which looked cute and made sense to us. And then the client came back and said that seating arrangement is unprofessional and would never happen in real life. They would be on separate sofa chairs.
Mayara: Yeah, they give us a really good feedback. Because I wouldn't have known that.
Joel: I was watching Shrinking, a show about therapists, and there was a scene when a therapist and client were on the sofa together, and I was like, "No, that's not accurate or appropriate!".
Mayara: Now we know!
Joel: In fact, in the end we changed that scene to the student sitting on a beanbag chair and the therapist was seen through a screen, in order illustrate online therapy.
Do you remember how long it took to complete this project with all fifteen illustrations?
Mayara: Including the creative direction and sketch phase, it was almost two months.
Joel: The client has made a lot of changes to the site since we launched during the pandemic. As a startup they have refined their business model and services so I guess the website is reflecting that now.
Joel: Tell me about what you’ve been working on this season.
Mayara: I was hired to create illustrations for Bio Parque do Rio, the zoológico and aquarium here in Rio de Janeiro. They were created for graphic materials to complement school group visits.
Joel: I love this work. It’s been fun to see the results on Instagram. It's quite complicated and so full of joy. That's really what makes your work special, how expressive the characters are and the feeling of joy in the people and all the little creators.
And you’re completing your Master’s degree this season right?
Mayara: Yes! I deliver my thesis dissertation in July. My research has been on a local cultural group called Bate-Bolas. Each year they appear at Carnival dressed as clowns (but not really clowns). They carry a big ball that they wave in the air and then hit on the ground, making a lot of noise. So I’ve been studying this tradition for my Master’s and developing a comic book based on their rejoicing during Carnival.
Joel: Amazing. I can’t wait to see it. They remind me a lot of another tradition called Mummering, a long way away in Newfoundland. Are you almost done?
Mayara: Yes, now I am finishing sketching all the pages. For my presentation I will share the research, the plan and the prototype with sketches. And after my Master’s is done, I will finish the over 100 pages and then onto publishing.
After July I plan to keep working with clients. I have also gotten more confident and happy with what I'm doing in comics. I published two small ones last year that I'm really proud of. I also want to do more small comics, like maybe one every year. And eventually I’ll publish a bigger compilation of stories. I also want to go back to dancing, because I haven’t done any ballet or contemporary dance since before the pandemic. And I have plans to create some ceramic sculptures, like miniatures. I have a friend that is opening a ceramics studio, and she's going teach me how to do it. Not plates and cups, but small toys. like small animals. I want to play with that.
Joel: I’m always excited to see what you’re working on Mayara. You’re creative output is really impressive. Good luck finishing your degree this summer!