Assets — Illustrations

What it is

Illustrations are the conceptual portrait of the ICP. Not a depiction of what she does, but a statement about what it feels like to be her. Her domain doesn't contain her: she contains it. The objects of her work expand to environmental scale, activate, orbit, float, and swirl around her as a fixed point of authority. The composition is always charged. She is always in command.

This is a metaphorical register, not a realistic one. A stylist doesn't stand in a studio next to a rack. She wields a tape measure the size of a river. A designer isn't reviewing samples at a desk. She stands at the center of a room that is assembling itself around her. An event planner isn't on a call. She steps through the screen into the coordination itself. The professional's relationship to her work is what is being illustrated, not the work.

Illustrations occupy Q1 in the asset quadrant: expressive, high-register, hero-weight. One Q1 type per surface. An illustration does not share a composition with a motif or a working sketch. It has all the space, or it is not there.

Illustrations at Visualist

Every illustration in the current library is built on the same underlying logic. Understanding it is the prerequisite for commissioning, generating, or evaluating any new work.

The fixed point

The figure is always the fixed point of the composition. She is still, centered, commanding. Everything else moves around or toward her. Her posture communicates authority: not aggressive, not posed, simply settled in her own domain.

The activated world

The objects of her profession don't sit still at natural scale. They expand, orbit, float, swirl, or activate in response to her presence. A tape measure becomes a river she wields. Garments hang suspended in decision space. A room assembles itself around her. The environment is charged, not decorative.

The metaphorical claim

Each illustration makes a specific claim about what it feels like to be this professional. Not what she does, what she is. Her domain doesn't contain her: she contains it. The brief must identify this claim before any composition decision is made.

The posture of command

Posture varies: directing, presiding, stepping through, leaning into. She is never overwhelmed, never reactive, never small. The emotional register is always: this is her world, and she knows it completely.

How to read the existing library

Command

Stylist wielding a tape measure as a living force. Her mastery of the craft is physical and total.

The Edit

Stylist at the threshold of a moodboard that has come alive. Decided pieces on the table, undecided pieces suspended in air. She directs with one gesture.

Worth

Professional leaning into a landscape of oversized revenue: coins, notes, a wallet. Confidence about money as rightful territory.

Shared Vision

Three professionals standing on an oversized open book, each with the same idea forming. Alignment as a spatial fact.

In the Room

Planner stepping through a laptop screen into the coordination itself. She is not managing the process from outside: she is inside it.

In Her Element

Designer at the center of a circular orbit of every object in her world. The room assembles itself around her. She is not selecting: she is summoning.

Character

Warm-line vector. Clean, intentional strokes with visible weight variation: slightly thicker where the line changes direction, lighter on straight runs. The line is drawn, not generated-looking. Not a flat fill shape. Not a mesh-gradient render. Not photorealistic.

Figure identity by color. Each persona has a signature clothing color that runs consistently through the library. Peyton wears orange and warm amber. Indigo wears purple and violet. Emery wears green and sage. These are identification signals, not decoration. A figure in the wrong color for her vertical breaks the system.

Diverse and female-presenting. Across the library as a whole, figures are diverse in skin tone, hair, and features. Within any single illustration, the figure is fully realized, not generic. She has a face, a posture, a presence.

Proportions. Slightly stylized, fashion-illustration adjacent, but grounded. Not exaggerated to the point of abstraction. The figure reads as a person, not an avatar.

Background. Always transparent. Files are delivered as SVG or high-resolution PNG with transparent layer. The illustration is placed on whatever palette background the surface requires. Never deliver an illustration with a baked-in background.

No effects. No drop shadows. No glow. No gradients on figure or objects. No texture overlays. The line and flat color do all the work.

Where it appears

Surface

Notes

Marketing site

Hero sections and long-form content where the brand needs a human presence. One illustration per section. The conceptual claim must connect to the surrounding content.

Social

Most expressive channel. Any palette background including core, soft, and strong colors. Posts where the content is about the ICP's work or experience, not the product.

Email

Header position only. The illustration carries the emotional register of the email. Match the figure's vertical to the email's content.

Product: onboarding and empty states

Where the product needs to establish warmth before the professional has content to show. Empty states only: not within active working views.

Presentations

One per slide at most. As the primary visual on slides about the ICP's world. Never as decoration alongside data or copy-heavy slides.

Never

Alongside another Q1 asset (motif, working). In any context where the product needs to be shown. As background texture or repeated pattern. Cropped.

Do / Don't

Do

Place on any palette background: Cotton, Parchment, or any core, soft, or strong color
Match the figure's vertical to the content: a styling figure for styling content, an interiors figure for interiors content
Give the illustration all the space it needs
Connect the conceptual claim to the surrounding content
Use multi-vertical illustrations for brand-level content that spans all three personas
Test legibility of line work against the chosen background before use

Don't

Share a surface with a motif or a working sketch (one Q1 asset per composition)
Use decoratively when unrelated to the surrounding content
Use a mismatched vertical figure when no approved figure exists for the required vertical
Recolor figures or objects to match a surface's color scheme
Use where the product needs to be shown. Use product asset types instead
Crop the figure or remove the professional context

Right / Wrong

Run every candidate through these tests before submitting for approval. All must pass.

The claim test

Can you state in one sentence what this illustration is claiming about the professional? If the answer is "she's working" or "she's at her desk," it is not a conceptual illustration. It is a portrait. Fail.

The command test

Is the figure the fixed, commanding point of the composition? Is she in relationship with her activated world rather than adjacent to it? If she reads as a bystander to her own environment, fail.

The vertical test

Is the figure's color correct for her persona? Are the objects drawn from the right professional world? An interiors object in a styling illustration, or the wrong color on the figure, fails.

The medium test

Warm-line vector with intentional stroke weight variation. No gradients, glow, drop shadows, or texture. Does it look drawn? If it looks generated, rendered, or filtered, fail.

The palette test

All colors from the Visualist system only. No pure black fills, no pure white, no off-palette colors. If a color can't be named in the palette, it doesn't belong.

The generic test

Could this appear in a competitor's marketing without looking out of place? If yes, the conceptual claim is not specific enough to Visualist's ICP. Fail.

Generation brief

A brief that describes a scenario will produce literal work. A brief that identifies the metaphorical claim first will produce an illustration. The sequence matters: claim, then composition, then objects. Use the thought starters to orient yourself before opening the prompt architect.

Thought starters

Five decisions before you begin

1. The claim

What is this illustration saying about the professional? State it as a sentence. "Her mastery of the craft is total and physical." "She contains the complexity of her work, it does not contain her." "Her judgment is the fixed point around which decisions orbit." If you can't state the claim, the brief isn't ready.

2. The vertical

Peyton (styling, Picardy), Indigo (interiors, Wolfe), or Emery (events, Gretna). Determines figure color and the object world available to the composition.

3. The object world

Which objects from her professional domain will activate in this composition? How do they behave: do they orbit, float, expand, suspend? What scale relationship do they have to the figure? Objects must be drawn from the professional's actual world, not generic business objects.

4. The posture

How is she relating to her activated world? Directing, presiding, stepping through, at the center of, leaning into. Choose one. The posture makes the claim legible.

5. Fixed parameters

Style: warm-line vector. Background: transparent. Effects: none. Palette: Visualist system only. Figure: slightly stylized proportions, female-presenting, fully realized face and posture.

Illustration prompt architect

Paste this into Claude, Gemini, or OpenAI. It will ask you questions and build a complete illustration brief iteratively. You do not need to know the brief structure or the ICP profiles before you start.

Prompt architect · copy and paste into Claude, Gemini, or OpenAI

I want you to become my Illustration Prompt Architect for Visualist. Your objective is to help me create a complete, precise brief for a brand illustration. The brief you produce must follow a specific conceptual grammar that cannot be changed.

The grammar has one rule: the professional contains her domain. She is the fixed point of the composition. The objects of her work expand to environmental scale, activate, orbit, float, swirl, or suspend around her. She is never passive, never adjacent to her work, never performing for the viewer. She is at the center of gravity of her world. The composition makes a specific metaphorical claim about who she is and what her mastery means. The claim comes first. Everything else follows from it.

The three professional figures this system illustrates are: a personal stylist, whose domain includes garments, fabric, tape measures, hangers, lookbooks, pins, swatches, and racks; an interior designer, whose domain includes floor plans, material samples, furniture forms, scale models, tiles, paint swatches, and architectural drawings; and a wedding and event planner, whose domain includes seating charts, floral arrangements, table settings, timelines, venue plans, lighting rigs, and fabric lengths. A composition may also feature two or three of these professionals together.

Your response will follow this format after the first exchange:

Prompt: The complete illustration brief, written to five parts: (1) the claim stated as a single sentence, (2) the professional figure and her color palette, (3) the object world with scale and behavior described, (4) the posture, (5) the fixed parameters: warm-line vector style, transparent background, no effects, Visualist palette only, slightly stylized female-presenting figure with fully realized face and posture. Make this section stand out.

Possible Additions: Three specific additions to incorporate directly into the brief, listed A, B, C. Keep each concise. Focus on: object specificity, posture precision, compositional detail, color ground, or the scale relationship between figure and objects. Always update after every response.

Questions: Up to three questions to gather what you still need. Do not ask about things I have already answered. Focus on: what metaphorical claim the illustration should make, which professional figure or figures appear, what objects from her domain activate in the composition and how they behave, what her posture is, and what the color ground is. If I describe a mood or feeling rather than a specific scene, help me translate it into a claim and a composition.

Before we start, greet me and ask me one question only: what idea, moment, or feeling do I want this illustration to express? Tell me I can describe it however I like: a professional scenario, an abstract concept, a quality I want to communicate about the work. Do not display any sections or structure on this first response.

Check the library before commissioning. If an approved asset already makes a similar claim for the same vertical, use it. New illustrations are for genuine gaps in the conceptual library, not for convenience or surface variety.

All new illustrations require Founder review before entering the library. Do not use a generated or commissioned illustration until it has been reviewed and approved.

Filename convention. illustration-[sequence]-[slug].svg, for example: illustration-001-peyton-command.svg

Generation history

The illustration system has evolved through three distinct generations. Understanding the evolution clarifies what the current standard requires and why earlier work is now legacy.

V1: Literal

Legacy · Do not reuse

Figure as portrait with props at natural scale. A stylist leaning on a rack. A designer holding swatches. A planner arranging flowers. Realistic relationship between figure and objects. Makes no conceptual claim. Documents a moment rather than making a statement about who she is.

V2: Transitional

Legacy · Do not reuse

Figure plus one oversized prop used as a presentational device. She stands beside a giant phone screen, holds a pencil taller than herself. Scale is exaggerated but the figure is still relatively passive, adjacent to the object rather than in dynamic relationship with it. Presentational, not conceptual.

V3: Conceptual

Current standard

Figure as fixed point. Professional domain activates and expands to environmental scale around her. The composition makes a specific metaphorical claim. She is not adjacent to her world: she is its center of gravity. Objects orbit, float, swirl, suspend. Posture communicates command.

V1 and V2 are officially legacy. They are preserved in the repository for reference and historical context. They are not available for reuse in new work without explicit Founder approval. When reaching for an existing asset, check the generation marker before using it.

All new commissions and generations follow V3. The generation brief in this chapter applies to V3 work only. Do not commission work in V1 or V2 grammar.

The library

All approved V3 illustrations. Check here before commissioning new work.

V1 and V2 assets are held in the repository under assets/legacy/ and are not listed here.