Visual Design Pillars
By Neil Blevins
Created On: Sept 4th 2024
Updated On: Jan 21st 2026
Software: None

Note: This is an excerpt from a much longer tutorial about creating Art Bibles. This page goes into a few extra helpful details, but if you want even more information, please visit the other tutorial afterwards.

Visual Design Pillars (sometimes abbreviated as "Pillars") are a set of Keywords that help define the look a set of designs, an alien race, or a whole fictional universe. Think of them as visual hooks or design elements that bind together a large group or entire project. They are the most important elements which informs every visual choice when creating an entertainment project, and are used to create visual consistency. They are most commonly found in Art Bibles or World Guides.

You have two choices with this lesson, watch the video below, or read the full text.



Examples From Famous IPs

One of the most famous scifi / fantasy franchises of all time is Star Wars. If you had to describe a visual element that defines all of the Rebel ships from the original trilogy, it might be "Cobbled Together". This is because they were rebels, they didn't have nice clean factories making their ships, they grabbed whatever ships they could and modified them in any way they were able. This is a great example of a higher level visual hook that connects a universe story point with a visual result. So "Cobbled Together" could be a Visual Design Pillar for the Rebel ships from Star Wars.



Another example is the Lord Of The Rings. Looking at all the books, illustrations, and movies, what key elements would you use to describe the orcs?

I'd probably use the following 3 Visual Design Pillars...


Here's a final example, the Transformers. First are the original 80s cartoon / toys, and second are the Transformers from the Michael Bay films. They're all Transformers, but each have very different looks.





If you want some Franchise Visual Design Pillars, they might be "Robots" and "Transform Into Vehicles". But the individual sub projects would be different from each other, for the original Transformers, it might be "Boxy" or "Saturated Colors", and for the Bayformers it might be "Hyper Complex", or "Spiky".

Personal Example

So, as a practical example from my own work, here are the three Visual Design Pillars of the "Desert Society" from "The Story Of Inc" book project, a Narrative Artbook I co-created with friends, an illustrated story about a man and his robot on a desert planet:



So in the story of Inc Book Project...



While we're on the planet, all visual design decisions should focus on "Desert", "High Tech Scrap" and "Epic Scale".

So for example, if we have metal on the planet, the metal should be rusty and damaged, because that's how metal would look in a desert.



Do you want to include some beautifully polished metal in the story? This is to be avoided, or if it is in the story, it should be there for a compelling story reason, because it won't visually match with your 3 pillars.

Another example, we need to make chairs for people to sit in in the Oasis, a desert city. In the story, the city is made up of bits and pieces recycled from a crashed starship. So this is where our second pillar "High Tech Scrap" comes in, everything in the city should be made from broken bits of the high tech generation ship. Hence the final designs of the furniture...



Notice chair 2 for example, it might be made from the old broken coil of an engine part from the spaceship.

And finally, "Epic Scale", when deciding the shape of say architecture, or the rock formations in the desert, make everything huge, avoid stuff that appears tiny, unless again, it has an important story point for why it's different from everything else...



Be Specific

Be as specific as possible when choosing Visual Design Pillars, don't use vague words like "Strength" or "Integrity", words that have a ton of completely different meanings that can be confusing. Use words like "Brushed Metal" or "Delicate Lace Clothing", these choices have less ambiguity and are more actionable as an artist turning the Visual Design Pillars into concept art.

Exercise

If you really want to drive the point home, here's a little exercise you can try...
  1. Choose one of your favorite IPs, and choose a faction. Examples:
  2. What are 3 Visual Design Pillars that define this faction? It can be shapes, colors, textures, etc
  3. Make a quick page with pictures showing examples of each pillar.

This site is ©2026 by Neil Blevins, All rights are reserved.
To see hundreds of other tutorials similar to this one, visit the Neil Blevins Education Site