A line and a song.
Pagebird's visual language is built from two ingredients: linework — gold or coral, drawn with a steady hand — and a single songbird. Icons are simple, two-weight, and softly rounded. We do not generate realistic illustrations; we draw.
Icon set
Icons live on a 24×24 grid with a 2px stroke and rounded line caps and joins. They are line-only when small (UI), and may be filled with gold for marketing surfaces. The set covers reading, social, and meta — extend by drawing in this style, never by importing from a generic pack.
Core set · cream
Inverted · forest
Linework
Pagebird's signature decorative motif is gold linework — a few hand-drawn open ovals, slightly overlapping, that sketch the gesture of a flock or a breeze through pages. Used at low opacity behind hero areas and on the green field. Coral squiggles play a similar role on cream.
Underline · italic accent
The bird
The pagebird mascot is a single yellow songbird — round, friendly, always facing right or three-quarter, mid-chirp. It typically stands on a forest-green book. Use sparingly: one bird per surface, not a flock.
Mascot do · don't
One bird per surface. Let it sit on a book, perch on a corner, or pop out of a card. Always with the same yellow body, gold wing, coral beak, ink linework — never recolored.
Don't multiply it into a flock. Don't recolor or stylize. Don't generate AI versions in different art styles. Don't pose it aggressively or angrily — pagebird is calm.
Pair the mascot with the wordmark on cream or with the gold linework on forest. Add a small chirp glyph (curved lines from the beak) when it's the focus of an illustration.
Don't use the bird as a UI loading spinner. Don't animate it excessively. Don't crop the head or feet — keep it whole.
Photography
When we use photography, it's of real readers and real books, lit naturally, with a tactile quality — fabric, paper, wood, ceramic. Backgrounds skew green, cream, or shadow. Avoid stock photography and avoid posed groups smiling at the camera. The reader is in the image, not posing for it.
Treatment
Lean into amber and ochre. Never blue-cool, never hospital-bright.
Soft contrast. Pools of light from a lamp, a window, a phone screen. No flash.
Side or three-quarter angles. Faces absorbed, not performing. Two to five people, never a crowd.
Photography lives next to type. Give the type its air. A 4:5 or 1:1 frame leaves room for an eyebrow above and a caption below.
Color-grade in post toward cream/forest, but keep skin natural. Skip presets that flatten or stylize.
No stock. The reader is in the image, not posing for it. The book has a name; the name should be legible if the camera saw it.