Graphic elements

Patterns, icons, shapes & textures

Graphic elements are the supporting cast that give a brand visual texture and range.

Graphic elements include the patterns, icons, illustration styles, shapes, textures, and decorative motifs that sit alongside a logo and color system. They fill the visual space between the primary brand mark and the content, and they play a large role in making a brand feel rich, distinctive, and consistent across many different applications.

Brands that rely only on a logo and colors often feel thin when stretched across a full range of communications. Graphic elements provide the system with vocabulary. The risk is creating elements that are decorative without being distinctive, or that are so complex they are only used in controlled campaign moments rather than day-to-day materials.

How strong brands handle it

The same building block, handled well. These are approaches and illustrations from how brands tend to work, not rules, and never a ranking of companies.

Ownable patterns

Brands like Burberry and Louis Vuitton have patterns so distinctive they function as identifiers on their own, without a logo. That level of recognition is an asset built over many years of consistent use.

Flexible systems

Design-forward brands like Dropbox and Mailchimp have developed illustration and icon styles that are both distinctive and flexible enough to extend across diverse content needs without losing coherence.

Purposeful use

Strong brands define when and how to use graphic elements, rather than applying them liberally. A restrained system with clear rules tends to hold up better than one where elements are used wherever someone thinks they 'look nice'.

Questions to explore

Use these on your own or in a group. There are no right answers, only better conversations.

Beyond our logo and colors, what visual elements make our brand immediately recognizable?
Are our graphic elements (icons, patterns, textures) consistent across different materials and channels?
Do we have a defined illustration or icon style, or do we pull from different sources depending on who is making the piece?
Which graphic elements do we use most often, and are they doing the job we intend?
What visual vocabulary could we develop that would be ownable and distinctive for our brand specifically?

Things to notice

Stock icons and generic patterns can fill visual space without adding any brand equity. Distinctive elements require investment in their creation and consistent application.
Graphic elements created for a one-time campaign often do not become part of the system, leading to a fragmented visual language over time.
More visual elements do not mean more brand; a system with too many elements becomes noisy and hard to use consistently.