Art&Graft evolves Gemini from technical showcase to living system

The Brand Identity: Art&Graft has worked in close partnership with Google DeepMind to shape the visual language for the launch of Gemini 3. The London-based design and motion studio, which had previously collaborated with the team on the identity for Gemini 2.0, was brought back to evolve that system for a product whose audience had broadened significantly. Gemini sits across a huge range of Google’s products, and the visual language needed to shift accordingly – retaining technical sophistication while becoming approachable enough for a much wider spectrum of users.

The result of the collaboration is a particle system delivered across hundreds of assets, alongside motion toolkits, templates and style guides designed to work from large presentation environments down to mobile screens. AI visual language has a well-documented tendency toward certain tropes. Art&Graft and the Google DeepMind team were conscious of this territory from the outset. “Neural networks, abstract data streams and similar motifs have become quite established, and if you’re not careful they bring a lot of baggage with them,” Founder & ECD Mike Moloney notes.

For a brand that sits at the centre of so many different products and services, landing somewhere distinctive felt essential. Together, the teams arrived at the idea of framing Gemini as a kind of thoughtful co-creator that’s ambient, intelligent and always present. From that positioning, everything else followed. The visual system suggests an intelligent presence that is constantly evolving and ready to respond, rather than visualising computation directly. Senior Motion Designer Gulya Voronova describes the underlying metaphor as rooted in nature.

The project uses the image of a shoal of fish – dot and pill elements moving together, changing direction, responding to their surroundings while maintaining clear structure. This creates a visual language that feels alive and intuitive, making complex technology easier to grasp. The particle system operates across two behavioural states, and the distinction between them does a great deal of work. In the ambient state, particles carry a quiet movement. When the user engages, prompting Gemini or triggering a response, the system shifts into active mode. Particles become more expressive, forming deliberate movements and shapes.

“For a brand system, that duality is genuinely useful,” Moloney shares. “It gives you both quiet moments and more expressive ones, which lets the identity scale across very different contexts without losing coherence.” Defining those behavioural rules was a joint effort, with the Google DeepMind team bringing strong instincts about how the system should feel throughout. Choosing colour proved to be one of the most demanding areas of development. The Gemini brand relies on a four-colour gradient, and ensuring those colours could move and interact without becoming muddy consumed significant exploration time.

Scaling introduced further complexity – particle behaviours needed to hold up from large presentation environments down to small mobile screens, which meant carefully testing densities and sizes to maintain clarity at every scale. The elongation detail, where particles subtly extend as they travel and contract when they settle, emerged from this process of fine-tuning. It does a great deal for the system’s sense of fluidity and intelligence without drawing attention to itself. Art&Graft effectively functioned as an extension of the creative team at Google DeepMind throughout the project.

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The collaboration between Art&Graft and Google DeepMind represents a significant advancement in brand identity design, showcasing innovative approaches that are highly relevant to brand strategy professionals.