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Project

Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe Icons & Pictorgrams

Client

Die Botschaft

My Services

System analysis and synthesis, iconography and pictogram definition, construction rules and guideline development

For the Berlin public transportation authority BVG, I led the definition of a unified pictogram and icon system to ensure consistent visual communication across physical and digital touchpoints. This work involved analyzing legacy symbol sets, establishing construction guidelines, and extending the system for digital requirements.

BVG brand guideline page showing German text about icon system and examples of informative icons with yellow backgrounds and interactive icons in black and white.

Context

The Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) operates public transport across Berlin with an extensive network of vehicles, stations, and service environments. Despite comprehensive brand guidelines in many areas, pictograms and icons lacked systematic definition, leading to visual inconsistency over time. The brief was to create a coherent design system that reflects BVG’s values and supports both physical signage and emerging digital interfaces under one cohesive approach.

Abstract digital illustration of two overlapping document icons with black, magenta, and green elements on a yellow grid background.
Minimalist graphic of a black cocktail glass with green and pink accents on a yellow grid background.

Approach

As the principal design lead on the project, I focused on ground-up synthesis rather than creating new concepts detached from existing practice.

- I analyzed hundreds of existing pictograms to identify common structural characteristics such as line weight, corner radius, fill patterns, and complexity.
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- Rather than enforcing a full redesign, I derived a core visual logic from the existing system to maintain operational continuity across thousands of assets.
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- I defined clear construction rules and guidelines for pictograms and extended these principles for digital icons, including responsive adjustments for size and clarity.
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- For digital usage, I established distinct icon states (Default, Hover, Active, Inactive) and refined line weights to support legibility at smaller scales.

Three yellow and black icons of overlapping speech bubbles showing progressive design refinement from solid yellow to outlined with grid and then final bold lines on yellow background.
Three variations of a shopping cart icon with a plus sign and the word 'Beispielwort'; one with large text on grid lines, one with smaller two-line text, and one on a yellow rounded rectangle button.
Three layouts showing the word 'Beispielwort' paired with a shopping cart icon featuring a plus sign, arranged left, right, and above the word respectively.

Collaboration with the BVG team and agency partners was iterative, grounded in evidence from the existing corpus rather than speculative trends.

Diagram comparing informative and interactive signs with black icons on yellow squares: a person on an escalator for informative and a shopping cart with a plus sign for interactive, connected by arrows to lists of design attributes and states.Four eye icons labeled Default, Active, Inactive, and Disabled, showing different visual states of visibility.

Outcome

The result is a comprehensive pictogram and icon guideline that supports consistent creation and application of visual symbols across the BVG brand. This guideline:

- defines the core rules for constructing pictograms and icons,offers a toolbox approach for generating new symbols with clarity and coherence, and

- bridges physical signage requirements with digital interface needs.

The system was accepted as a working standard for ongoing design operations, enabling more predictable and scalable symbol creation across channels.