Illumina Brand Design System 2024
We had the privilege of teaming up once again with our friends at Illumina, this time to create a comprehensive system that builds upon the company’s existing logo and colors, uniting all brand elements under a robust visual identity.
After working with Illumina over the years, we’ve developed a strong sense of the company’s soul. This evolution of Illumina’s brand identity reflects the depth of our creative partnership, deeply understanding their goals and positioning to create a visually stunning, cohesive brand story.
Role: Creative Director, From pitch to delivery.
Credits :
Client : Illumina
Studio: BUCK
Chief Design Officer: Ben Langsfeld
Creative Director: Liron Eldar-Ashkenazi
LONG STORY LONG.
It started with a moment of clarity. A sense that Illumina’s brand was carrying more than its system could hold. The work had outgrown the language that framed it. One film a long time ago set the stage to what illumina should look and feel like; Sublime. Illumina makes things that shape, change, and evolve every piece of our world. That spark pushed us into a deeper exploration of what the identity needed to become. Not another guideline. A structure built to scale with the company’s ambition.
“Science deserves clarity.” That line came up in an early meeting, and it stuck. It became the North Star for the entire identity overhaul. If Illumina is shaping the future of genomics, their brand needed the same precision and coherence. Our collaboration focused on building a visual system that finally brought all of that to life.
Sequence
Our campaign design system, “Sequence,” centers light and clarity, serving as a powerful tool to guide Illumina’s teams and vendors effortlessly through the creative process. The system is built on a precise, intentional grid, minimizing the margin for error and encouraging abundant, yet rigorous creativity.
Minimal, abstract graphics leverage Illumina’s scientific foundations and invoke motion and texture, enhancing the versatility of their offerings. A revamped color palette creates harmony across brand touchpoints, including photography and product renders. We also delivered a revamped set of icons to support Illumina’s messaging across all of their audience sectors and offerings.
Our work with Illumina also included a full 3D system that showcases the craft behind their sequencers, cartridges, and flow cells. We rebuilt each product from the ground up with clean topology, organized components, and optimized geometry to sharpen the tactile feel, then extended the system with high-impact animations of DNA, protein, epigenome, and RNA. Each instrument blends detail with restraint, using reflections, mattes, precise camera angles, and controlled highlights to reveal its material range. Opening exterior panels and surfacing the internal parts exposes the depth and sophistication of Illumina’s technology.
Know Your Audience
Illumina’s three audiences need different signals, so we built distinct identities for Academic and Government, Commercial and Applied, and Healthcare. Illumina Major anchors the system with its familiar pumpkin palette. Academic and Government gets a sharper, future-facing feel with lilac gradients, textured lines, and kinetic illustrations that capture research momentum. Commercial and Applied leans on clarity with structured layouts, bold lines, blue-orange gradients, and human-centered photography. Healthcare bridges research and real-world outcomes through green accents, warm imagery, and a more humane tone that signals growth and trust. Each system stands on its own yet folds into one Illumina story, built to support the people driving human health forward through genomics.
