reduction in illustration costs per course
faster production per illustration
to complete 28 Arabic alphabet illustrations, down from 6–8 weeks
more courses launched in the same timeframe
All metrics reflect actual project outcomes. Company name withheld per confidentiality agreement.
overview
An edtech startup based in Greece, building a mobile learning app for children aged 4 to 10. The app offered courses in language, maths, and general knowledge, with each course featuring a unique set of illustrated screens and interactive elements.
The app's visual identity was built around a distinctive flat vector illustration style — friendly characters, clean lines, bold colours, and a playful but educational tone. Every new course needed 30 to 50 unique illustrations, including character poses, icons, scene backgrounds, and interactive elements. The company was also expanding into Arabic-language content, requiring a new set of illustrated Arabic alphabets where each letter transformed into a creative, child-friendly illustration.
EdTech · Children's education
November 2025
Brand-consistent illustration system for in-app screens and courses
70% cost savings · 10x faster production · 28 Arabic alphabet illustrations in 5 days
The Challenge
The company had been working with a freelance illustrator to produce all visual assets. The illustrator was talented and understood the style perfectly. But the bottleneck was capacity: a single illustrator producing 30 to 50 illustrations per course, with each illustration taking 2 to 4 hours of work.
- Single illustrator bottleneck the company's entire visual output depended on one person's bandwidth — one course at a time, with no way to scale without style drift.
- $80,000 to $135,000 in annual illustration costs for 12 planned courses, at a rate of $6,750 to $11,250 per course in illustration fees alone.
- Product roadmap held hostage by illustration queue courses that were fully written and designed were sitting idle, waiting for illustrations before they could launch.
The Arabic alphabet project alone required 28 unique illustrated letters, each with multiple variations. The freelancer estimated 6 to 8 weeks for this project, at a cost of roughly $15,000.
Our product roadmap was being dictated by illustration capacity, not by content readiness.
How We Solved It
We started from the company's existing illustration library. Line weights, colour palette, character proportions, compositional patterns. The model learned all of it directly from the assets the team had already produced.
1. Training on the existing illustration library
We used the full library of existing illustrations as training data. The model learned the specific characteristics of the style: line weights, colour palette, character proportions, shading techniques, and compositional patterns.
2. Solving the Arabic alphabet challenge
For the Arabic alphabet project, we worked with the company's educational content team to understand the pedagogical requirements. Each letter needed to be recognisable as both an Arabic character and a playful illustrated object. The model was trained to produce illustrations that met both the visual style requirements and the educational clarity standards.
3. Humans directing, AI producing
The company's design team directed the creative output, selecting illustrations, requesting adjustments, and making final refinements. The AI handled the production volume. The humans ensured every illustration was educationally sound and visually on-brand.
Style Analysis
Existing illustration library ingested and studied
Model Training
Custom model trained on flat vector illustration style
Content Brief
Educational content team defines pedagogical requirements
Illustration Generation
On-brand illustrations produced at scale
Educational Review
Team verifies illustrations are educationally sound
Design Refinement
Final adjustments and quality checks
Course Launch
Illustrated course screens shipped
The Results
Five days. The Arabic alphabet project, 28 unique illustrated letters originally estimated at 6 to 8 weeks, was done in five days.
Per-course illustration costs dropped from $6,750–$11,250 to roughly $2,000–$3,400. Across 12 courses, that saved over $75,000, a 70% reduction.
Illustrations that used to take 2 to 4 hours each were now produced and refined in 15 to 25 minutes. Production speed increased 10x per screen.
The company launched 4 new courses in the time it previously took to illustrate one. The product roadmap was no longer held up by illustration capacity.
Visual consistency was actually higher than when working with a single freelancer over many months, where subtle style drift naturally occurs. The style held across all courses and languages.
Since then, the company has used the same system for promotional materials, app store screenshots, and social media content. Same style, no additional setup.
This case study is based on a real client engagement with an edtech startup in Greece building a mobile learning app for children. Company name withheld per confidentiality agreement. All metrics reflect actual project outcomes.