DeepL Bridges community brand system
DeepL Bridges is the company's global community platform. It needed a branding system that could express community, collaboration, and shared values around DeepL's products, while still feeling unmistakably part of the DeepL family.
My role
Illustrator and visual systems designer on DeepL's Creative Studio illustration taskforce. I co-created the visual system for DeepL Bridges, from early concept development through to the modular Figma component library that powers it.
Credits
Illustrations: Carolina Alárcon Community manager: Tim Cadenbach Arte Direction: Wolf Strack, Ana Rodrigues
The project
Extend DeepL's isometric language (built with Pentagram) into a modular illustration system for the Bridges website, social, and LinkedIn. Requirement: express community for a global audience without cultural bias.
The solution
The concept is bridges, structures that connect separate points, mirroring a platform built on language and connection. Illustrations use interconnected pillars, green for community and dark blue for development, always linked. Abstraction replaces literal symbols: culture is an L-shaped couch and coffee table, not a flag; meet and greet is an espresso machine with two cups, not people waving. Built in Figma as modular components (cubes, pillars, platforms, bridges) so new assets scale without breaking the system, with non-realistic proportions that keep focus on relationships over objects.
