About The Author Juggling between three languages on a daily basis, Iris is known for her love of linguistics, arts, web design and typography, as well as her goldmine of … More about Iris …

Best Of Halloween: All Things Spooky

Smashing Newsletter Every week, we send out useful front-end & UX techniques. Subscribe and get the Smart Interface Design Checklists PDF delivered to your inbox. Your (smashing) email Subscribe →

Whether or not you celebrate Halloween, there is something magical about that special spooky day, surrounded by mystery, horror, scare and trick-or-treat candies for kids and adults alike. In this post, we celebrate the creative side of Halloween with those of you who are also planning to celebrate with friends. The post features artists around the world who have been creating wonderful illustrations dedicated to Halloween.

Whether or not you celebrate Halloween, there is something magical about that special spooky day, surrounded by mystery, horror, scare and trick-or-treat candies for kids and adults alike. The modern-day spirit of Halloween shines through in its tradition; everyone can dress up like a monster, superhero, or nearly anything else. It allows our imagination to unfold and lets us be whatever we want to be — for that one very special day (and night).

In this post, we celebrate the creative side of Halloween with those of you who are also planning to celebrate with friends. The post features artists around the world who have been creating wonderful illustrations dedicated to Halloween. Even if you aren’t a big fan of Halloween, we can almost guarantee that you’ll decide to celebrate by the end of this post. Don’t believe us? Well, let’s see!

Further Reading on SmashingMag:

Dressing Up

Here’s a wonderful digital illustration that was created by Hyoju Park. She used the Procreate app on her iPad Pro to bring these two sweet cats to life, along with their not-so-amused pumpkin.

Voodoo Dolls Series (Pt. 1)

Some folks like to challenge themselves. Sylvian Drolet is one of them. This little voodoo doll is just one of the terrific characters that came to life while he worked on The Voodoo Doll Series. His aim was to reunite well-known characters, superheroes or famous people all into one illustration style. We only have one thing to say: Mission accomplished!

Halloween Kids

This illustration was done for a kids’ magazine called “Galeb” (Seagull). The Slovenian artist, Marko Rop, focuses mostly on children’s book illustrations, and this one was his first Halloween-themed piece of art done with the help of his Wacom Intuos tablet. Brilliant work!

Drawlloween

What’s Halloween without sweets, right? Well, Lindsay Dale-Scott sure didn’t want the muffin and cherry to miss the party.

The Friendly Witch

The colors and texture on this witch are spot on, wouldn’t you agree? Although we think that she looks a bit too kind for Halloween, you never know, she may already be planning which spell to use next!

Halloween Skater

As Loreta Isac is a fan of longboards herself, she decided to combine one with a pumpkin, a shoe, and a bone in one illustration. Simple objects with beautiful simplicity and a brilliant combination of colors.

Let It Rain Candies

Let’s be honest: If these seven adorable children showed up at your door on Halloween, you’d probably give them all the sweets they asked you for. An impressive use of colors in this illustration, with love for detail. This piece was created by Junissa Bianda for the 2016 Halloween Tr!ckster showcase.

Kids Halloween Characters & Elements

The main accent colors of this illustration are blue, violet and orange. They perfectly convey the spirit of Halloween, don’t they? Daria Danilova recently created these characters for Halloween, along with patterns and templates for greeting cards.

Pumpkin Patch

Lovely use of autumn colors by Caley Hicks. A fantastic pumpkin patch illustration that is quite simple yet contains a good number of detail.

Creepy Pages

Now here’s a cute idea Rawan thought of. She took an old medical book and cut out a few spooky ghosts. The result is brilliant, and the teeny tiny little spider gives a great touch to it, too!

Spooky Pet Ghosts

Well, these two are definitely an eye catcher. Carlie Burton presents these spooky floating pet ghosts as a perfect example of going beyond reality and expressing the message of Halloween directly.

Happy Pumpkins

Some lovely subtle gradients and textures in these three happy pumpkins. The floating leaves and the soft shadows perfectly capture the atmosphere of a golden autumn day.

Halloween Time!

These adorable little characters are definitely ready for Halloween. Pamela Barbieri created them specially for a magazine for kids.

Mummy

What a fantastic take on illustrating a mummy. Maria Keller created this little guy for one of her personal projects, and we’re sure glad she did!

Juan Lobito

Here’s a mischievous (but so adorable) little boy who apparently really enjoys his wolf costume, aka Juan Lobito. Great details in the illustration showing ‘movement’ in the ears and tail.

Dressing Up The Olson “O”

Ever considered dressing up letters for Halloween? Well, Tyler Genovese did, and he did it quite well. These illustrations of the Olson “O” are all vector illustrations made in Adobe Illustrator. Spooooo-ky!

Zombie Boy

This guy seems to be excited about eating brains. As his creator, Zyrick Kerwin Bati, states: “Run before he catches you and eats your brains out!”

Return Of The Dead

A fantastic animated illustration of a zombie’s hand that almost gives you goosebumps just by watching it.

Frankenstein

Inspired by the classic “Bride of Frankenstein”, Belia Simm decided to create a minimalistic illustration of this iconic character.

Frankenstein Monster

Another version of our well-known Franki with an interesting color palette.

Costume Kids

Trick or treat, smell their feet! These kids are getting groovy with their creepy costumes and delightful masks. Go on, give them something to smile about.

Cats of Halloween

Another great illustration by Caley Hicks. This time it’s a beautiful pattern of Halloween-themed kittens.

Happy Halloween

A nice Halloween collection with spooky characters and graphic elements. This digital set can be used for greeting cards, invitations, magnets, posters, or any other objects. Get inspired!

Boo

Here’s a lovely variety of ghost characters that could be used as stickers or as a pattern for a wallpaper or even a T-shirt. Definitely some inspiring choices of shapes and lines in this creative illustration.

Social Zombies

Zombie /ˈzɒmbi/ (n.): A person who is or appears lifeless, apathetic, or completely unresponsive to their surroundings. This meaning of a zombie clearly explains this amusing illustration. As Chris Fernandez, the artist, states: “Dead or alive, you gotta collect dem likes!”

Spooky Halloween Wallpapers

Our round-up of monsters, pumpkins, zombies and everything else you might want to see (or not see!) on your desktop. Wallpapers for your scary Halloween party.

Looking for a spooky wallpaper for Halloween? Browse here!

Halloween Goodies (Free)

Flat Trick Or Treat Icons

This creative icon set is available in flat, line and color designs that are sure to enhance your designs. Free for personal use. For commercial use please contact the designer.

Halloween Icons

Free Halloween icons (available in AI and Sketch formats) that have been designed in three different sets: flat, line and colored. Thank you, AomAm!

Happy Halloween Icon Set

Halloween is just around the corner, and it’s time to add a few scary and fun icons to your projects. Here’s a set of 19 icons that are all available in AI, EPS, PDF, SVG and PNG formats. It was designed and created by Manuela Langella and is free to be used in private as well as commercial projects.

Cute Icons For Halloween

With this free Halloween icon pack you get 30 cute pumpkins, zombies, candies and monster icons as Adobe Illustrator vector icons, SVG icons and PNG files in 32px, 64px, 128px, 256px and 512px. The vector source files are 100% editable.

40 Vector Halloween Icons

40 Halloween-themed vector icons which you can use for your next design. Included are AI, PSD (smart objects), EPS and PNG (2000×2000px) files. Perfect for fashion patches, pins, stickers, badges, temporary tattoos, and almost anything else.

Cartoon-Inspired Halloween Icon Set

This special Halloween icon set was inspired by classic cartoons. The icons come as transparent PNGs in five sizes: from 32×32, 48×48, 64×64, 128×128 up to 512×512 pixels. Spice up your website or application with a spooky Halloween atmosphere.

Did We Forget Anyone?

There are so many more talented designers out there, and unfortunately not everyone could fit in today’s post. Please feel free to share their (or your) work with us in the comments section below.