That was the starting point for the project developed by designer James Barnard alongside Scott McCarthy, VP of Localization at DreamWorks Animation: to create a visual system capable of explaining how AI has been used in an audiovisual production.
The brief required solving several conditions at once. The symbols had to be timeless, work at small sizes, be understood in any language, and avoid any positive or negative bias regarding the use of the technology.
The system began with four use cases: subtitles, written or spoken text, synthetic voices, and lip-sync reanimation to adapt facial movement to dubbed dialogue.
The solution didn't come on the first try.
The star or sparkle icon, common in AI branding, was ruled out as a primary element because it is too closely associated with tech companies. The microchip didn't work either, as it required too much detail and lost legibility when scaled down.
Ultimately, they turned to a reference from programming language. Each pictogram appears between curly braces, visually indicating that that part of the content has been generated or modified by a machine.
The design also had to be adjusted after testing it with industry professionals. The icon initially intended for text worked better as a representation for subtitles, so it was swapped. Lip reanimation was the most difficult category: it had to show a part of the face without conveying joy, sadness, or any judgment about the AI itself.
So far, this might seem like a good graphic design exercise, but the true value of the project lies elsewhere.
The icons allow for turning a technical explanation into information that the user can recognize in seconds and apply the same criteria across different languages, screens, territories, and productions without drafting a new explanation for each case.
An intensity scale was added to this system to indicate how much weight AI had in each use. In this way, the information is not limited to just indicating its presence but also showing its scope.
The most complicated part begins once the design is finished: getting studios, platforms, and professionals to adopt the same symbols.
An isolated icon provides little information, unlike a shared system that can become a standard.
For that to happen, the solution must be easy to apply, understood without instructions, and maintain the same meaning wherever it appears; it requires industry-wide agreements before every company ends up using its own language and transparency depends on the viewer knowing how to interpret it.
This project clearly demonstrates the purpose of visual thinking: not to decorate a complex issue, but to organize it, make it understandable, and prepare a solution that can scale.
Something similar happens in corporate communication. The interesting thing about this project isn't the icons, but the process behind them: testing, discarding, simplifying, and adjusting until finding a solution that anyone can interpret without the need for additional explanations.
That is, arguably, one of the greatest challenges of any communication directed at the market.
If you want to watch the video where James Barnard explains it himself, click here.
-
Juan José Ros
Founding partner of Sigma Rocket
