Ideography
Spaceship uses ideograms to convey simple, clear ideas. We avoid complex narratives or literal depictions, focusing instead on the core meaning of the message expressed through simple geometry and movement.
Spaceship’s ideography blends intuition and systematisation, balancing simplicity and elegance while remaining open to evolution.
Core shapes
Our ideography is based on three core shapes: the circle, square, and triangle. Simplicity and geometric essence are significant parts of the brand DNA, and these basic shapes translate that same baseline for building new imagery.
Alphabet
We created our alphabet from the three core shapes. These characters are the building blocks of the brand’s visual communication system. The potential combinations are endless, allowing us to create any visual output to fulfil Spaceship’s brand needs.
Ideograms
Combining two or more characters can create unique yet easily understood representations of ideas and concepts. This is a timeless and universal means of communication that transcends language barriers.
Vocabulary
When a message is more complex, we can explore richer visual solutions, always rooted in simple geometry and movement.
Composition
We aim for harmony and balance between visual elements — avoiding both overly simplistic solutions and unnecessary additions to the composition.
Colours
The use of colour in Spaceship ideography follows the structure of our brand’s colour families, organised into three groups: brand, product, and notification colours. Each group includes base colours with their own tints, shades, and light and dark mode versions.
Brand colours
Generic Spaceship ideography compositions should use main or auxiliary colours from the brand colour palette. Check out the colour page for further details.
Product colours
Domains, Hosting, Security, and Email ideography compositions should use only the corresponding category colour palettes. SPS Dark Grey can be combined with each of these category colours.
Notification colours
Notification colours align with the established colour references from Spaceship Design System, ensuring consistency across the platform and clarity so users can quickly understand the intent of each message.
A system that adapts
Using our dark and light colour palette, ideography assets are adapted and adjusted to function in light and dark mode environments.
Light mode ‘Excite and Inspire’ asset.
Direct dark mode colour conversion.
Use a bright colour to convey the message of ‘Excite and Inspire’.
Guidance
Here are some examples of what to avoid when using our core characters to compose ideograms.
Do not apply Pathfinder actions such as Merge, Subtract, Crop, or similar operations.
Do not distort characters in any way.
Do not change the opacity, apply blending modes, or effects on the characters.
Do not apply outlines to characters.
Do not mix different colour groups or use colours outside the defined colour Spaceship palette.
Do not overuse solid colour characters.