System
Illustration plays an important role in our brand, from building excitement around major announcements to supporting simple product updates. To meet this wide range of needs, we’ve developed an expression system that provides a versatile framework for creating imagery across different use cases.
Whether the moment calls for an engaging, story-driven illustration or quieter visual support, each expression falls somewhere along this spectrum. Our expression system helps determine the appropriate level of visual impact for each moment from expressive key art to supportive patterns.
To create high-quality, on-brand assets, we highly recommend using the Brand Asset Generator. Choose from a variety of templates and customize the text to create visuals tailored to your needs.
Key Illustrations
Our key illustrations are reserved for big brand moments. They’re detailed, delightful, and live in a light mode palette. They feature our mascots and contribution-graph-inspired patterns, with supporting details like product icons, dithering patterns, and developer-inspired details.
Patterns
Supportive patterns sit at the quieter end of the spectrum. They add visual interest, reinforce a message, or complement a product experience without competing with the primary content. These expressions work well for smaller product updates, educational content, and everyday communications where illustration should provide context or personality rather than become the focal point.
Not every use case will fall at either extreme; the right expression may sit somewhere in between, depending on the importance of the moment, the needs of the audience, and how prominently the illustration should contribute to the experience.
The Contribution Square
The foundation of our illustration system begins with a humble but distinctly GitHub element: the contribution square. Rather than reproducing contribution graphs literally in every illustration, we treat the square as a flexible visual building block that can be repeated, arranged, scaled, and transformed to create everything from subtle patterns to expressive key art.
Brand Illustration Pillars
The illustration system was designed around three core themes: Core GitHub Brand, AI and Agents, and Security and Privacy. Together, they provide a flexible framework for our illustration needs, with each using distinct visual motifs within a shared system.
Core GitHub Illustrations represents GitHub broadly and can be used for stories about the platform, its products, developers, communities, and ways of working. Its patterns are rooted in the structure of the contribution graph, using simple, grid-based compositions as their foundation. Mona and Ducky can also be incorporated to add character and a more distinctly GitHub presence.
AI and Agents uses sine-wave forms and pearl-like textures to suggest energy, movement, speed, and computational power. A special pearl-colored version of Mona, reserved exclusively for AI, represents the amplified capabilities AI brings to GitHub.
Security uses the shield Octicon as its primary motif, signaling safety, trust, and protection. Subtle blur effects and obscured color treatments can suggest data being concealed, safeguarded, or kept private. Together, these motifs can be adapted across the expression spectrum to support stories about securing code, protecting users, and reducing risk.
