Designing Control in
an AI-Generated World
AI image generation is changing how brands are built and who gets to build them. For many creatives, that shift can feel like a loss of ownership.
In reality, it’s a shift in where that ownership lives—from crafting individual outputs to defining the systems that shape them. Without that structure, brands dilute.
While rebranding Illumio, we turned “breach containment” into narrative imagery that resonated across the organization. As demand for custom imagery grew, we built a system that enabled speed and scaled a repository of brand-approved images—keeping the work cohesive, intentional, and distinct—while restoring clarity and authorship at scale.
Creating a breach containment
visual narrative
Illumio is a cybersecurity company focused on identifying and containing threats. When “Contain the breach” became our defining tagline, we rejected the industry’s fear-driven visuals—dark palettes, hooded hackers, abstract chaos—and instead built a narrative system that visualized control: a warm, utopian landscape where floating orange network containment boxes revealed micro-segmentation at work.
To bring this to life at scale, we developed an AI-driven image generation process grounded in clear inputs, character and style definitions, and rules to follow. The goal of the internal guidelines was to enable designers to work independently within a cohesive visual system. While those generation guidelines remain confidential, the external guidelines define how the style is expressed outwardly for adaptation by employees or external vendors and partners.
We designed a world
—not just a style.
Establishing a repeatable, symbolic visual language
The goal wasn’t just consistency—it was meaning. Every image needed to reinforce the same underlying narrative through a shared visual language.
Through repeated iteration, we defined a system of textures, perspectives, forms, and characters that made each output feel intentional, cohesive, and distinctly Illumio.
Building to scale
across the brand
The system adapts across environments, industries, and personas while maintaining consistency. The images shown here were created independently by different designers, all working from the same set of guidelines.
As new images were generated, they were added to a central repository, giving internal teams access to approved assets for presentations and brand touchpoints. The brand team owned imagery at the highest level—across campaigns and the website—while enabling marketers to create within clear, consistent boundaries for opportunities further down the sales cycle.
Using color and nuanced elements for events and programs
We evolved the system through subtle shifts in color, environment, and narrative detail.
In Illumiverse (a customer-centric community), this meant introducing cosmic backdrops and journey-driven human elements—creating a distinct program identity while staying grounded in the core brand language.
For the Illumio World Tour, we were able to localize the images by bringing familiar city landmarks into the images we created.
Self-service images
The parachute image was generated by a member of the marketing team who needed a custom visual for a 1:1 customer meeting—without relying on the brand team’s bandwidth. Using our guidelines and shared library, they were able to create a fully on-brand image without approvals or added workflow.
IMPACTWith these systems in place, we enabled non-design teams to create on-brand visuals, increased brand consistency, and established a scalable foundation for AI-driven creative.