Assets

Eight asset types. Each has a distinct job, a distinct register, and a distinct relationship to the brand. They are not interchangeable. Choosing the right asset type is as important as choosing the right color.

The system

Handmade / Analog

Exists as a physical-medium artifact or is derived from one. Character comes from the hand, the material, or the lens.

Screen / Digital

Native to a screen environment. Character comes from composition, framing, and design intention applied to pixels.

Conceptual

Carries meaning beyond its literal content. Communicates brand character, emotional register, world-building.

Q1 Abstract + Expressive

Motif Illustrations Working sketches

Q2 Expressive

Photography

Functional

Communicates a specific action, feature, or task. Clarity is the primary job.

Q3 Accent

Soft icons Stickers

Q4 Product

Translations Simplifieds Recordings

The quadrant governs register and constraints. Two asset types can share a surface only when their registers are complementary, not competing. Q1 assets pair naturally with each other and with Q2. Q3 and Q4 appear together in product contexts. A working next to a recording, or a photograph next to a sticker, is a register collision.

Competing types. Q1 and Q4 are diagonal opposites: one asks you to feel something, the other asks you to do something. Placing a watercolor calligraphic form alongside a recording, or an illustration alongside product UI chrome, creates a composition that argues with itself. Q2 and Q3 compete for the same reason from the other diagonal: photography slows the eye and builds atmosphere; stickers and soft icons communicate instantly and move it along. They cancel each other's register. Within Q1, Motif, Illustrations, and Working sketches also compete with each other when more than one appears in the same frame. All three are dominant. One Q1 type per surface.

Abstract

Motif

Three forms derived from the infinity mark in the wordmark. The brand's most distilled visual expression.

Expressive

Illustrations

The ICP as a conceptual portrait. Not what she does: what it feels like to be her. Her domain doesn't contain her. She contains it.

Working sketches

Colored pencil drawings that make a professional's working process visible. Not the object, not the finished decision: the thinking in between.

Photography

Atmosphere, cultural fluency, traces of creative life, visual rhythm. Not every image explains the product. Different images do different jobs.

Accent

Soft icons

Gentle, approachable, slightly playful. More expressive than functional UI icons, but grounded in recognizability. Supporting elements, never heroes.

Stickers

Flat, line-drawn objects from the ICP's professional world. Where a working sketch studies one specific thing slowly, a sticker communicates a category immediately.

Product

Translations

Manufactured artifacts expressing the Taste Graph. The product's reasoning made visible.

Simplifieds

Real design system, minimal content. Structure legible without parsing a live interface.

Recordings

Full fidelity. The actual product, step by step. Knowledge base, email, trade shows.

File conventions

Naming

[type]-[sequence]-[slug].ext. The sequence is a global index within the asset type, not a per-category counter. Assets are numbered in the order they are approved and added to the library.

motif-001-curve.png
illustration-001-peyton-command.svg
working-001-chair.svg
photo-003-hands-swatches.jpg
icon-001-calendar.svg

Formats

Motif: SVG (transparent background) + PNG (transparent background, 2400px minimum long edge). Cotton paper ground is added in production, not at source.
Illustrations: SVG (transparent background) + PNG at 2400px
Working sketches: SVG (transparent background) + PNG at 2400px
Photography: JPG, 300dpi minimum
Soft icons: SVG only
Stickers: SVG, transparent background
Translations: Built in code. No source file.
Simplifieds: PNG at 2x screen resolution (static); code (interactive on web); GIF or MP4 (interactive export)
Recordings: MP4 or GIF

Approval

No asset enters the library without review
Generated assets must be checked against the right/wrong criteria in the relevant asset section
An asset that has not been approved is not a production asset, regardless of quality

Repository

All approved assets live in the brand repository organized by type: assets/motif/, assets/illustrations/, assets/working-sketches/, assets/photography/, assets/soft-icons/, assets/stickers/, assets/product-translations/, assets/product-simplifieds/, assets/product-recordings/
C'est La V references them via relative path: src="/assets/motif/[filename]"
Check the library before generating a new asset
Use existing assets wherever possible