YouTube Brand Elements
YouTube
2020-2024
Brand Strategy, Design, and Design Systems
As a Senior Visual Designer, I was responsible for developing the strategy and building out visuals, components, and guidelines for design elements used across YouTube's product and marketing areas.
Background: YouTube Standards was created to unify the brand across product and marketing. Formed by a multidisciplinary team of designers, animators, art directors, engineers, and project managers, YouTube Standards became the comprehensive hub for all things brand. The team operated as an internal creative agency to define and evolve the brand. This included developing logos, typography, iconography, color system, imagery, motion design, UI/UX, and even interactive tools for spark inspiration to internal and external partners.
In an effort to stay ahead of the trending visual element of gradients, we formulated the best practices and techniques for creating gradients and how to use them in compositions. In order to ensure that gradients that we used were cohesive, we created diffused and image based gradients that pull from the color of the content they surround.
I designed and constructed guidelines for YouTube's new shape library for designers to use as both framing and supporting elements. The library consisted of 300 shapes that could be used interchangably to create more engaging visuals.
Patterns were a visual element that, although beautiful, needed to have some guardrails. I designed a robust pattern library consisting of geometric, organic, and textural patterns. Additionally, I worked with engineers and designers to develop an internal tool for designers create their own patterns (and export to vector) using shapes from our shape library. This allowed for the patterns to have a wide range of style (scale, rotation, geometric, organic, textural) while still adhering to a consistent grid and shape library. The range of patterns is symbolic of the diversity of the YouTube user base, allowing for a flexible system in addition to adding a human touch and dynamic motion to the designs created.
For a platform like YouTube, the amount of logos required to operate number somewhere in the thousands. I spearheaded the evolution of YouTube's logo system, ensuring adaptability across diverse platforms, from mobile to billboards. This included enhancing accessibility through graded font variations for optimal light and dark mode contrast. I also managed the creation of comprehensive asset libraries on Figma (over 10,000 logos), delivering pixel-perfect digital files and scalable print versions. Collaborating closely with type designers, UX engineers, and marketing, I guaranteed consistent and seamless logo integration across all product and marketing touchpoints, maintaining YouTube’s iconic visual identity.