Lixil GROHE

From complex symbols to intelligent systems.

GROHE needed a new way to communicate a suite of features built into their range of flagship products, known as Aqua Intelligence.

The existing symbols were trying to do too much. Detailed illustrations, tiny embedded labels, low contrast and dark circular tiles were being asked to work at packaging scale, sometimes as small as 30mm high.

The brief quickly became bigger than icon design. This was about building an entirely new approach to GROHE’s visual communication system.

One of my first design decisions was to open up the restrictive discs into rounded square tiles, instantly giving the symbols more space to breathe. The depictions were reduced to their clearest possible forms, designed to work from a distance as well as when held in hand.

The colour palette was rebuilt to meet AAA accessibility standards. Aqua Intelligence received a richer, more prominent treatment, while Feature Benefits and Technical Specifications became cleaner, more restrained and functional.

The biggest shift was structural. Text labels were removed from the artwork and handled outside the symbols, reducing variant assets by 87.5%. Instead of maintaining eight versions of every icon, GROHE could now work from one base asset.

A custom CMS then turned that base library into four themed visual styles, with options to add labels and export multiple translations using uploaded CSV files.

Less artwork. More intelligence. A system designed not only to look better, but to work harder for GROHE’s customers and internal teams.

A selection of icons from the GROHE iconography system — A selection of the Aqua Intelligence icons above, and Technical Specification icons below, designed to communicate and celebrate the features of GROHE’s flagship product range.

Alignment of the text labels to a consistent baseline — The system introduced several standardised ways to display information, including the placement of type.

The flexible grid system allowing the icons to flex across both digital and print — Rounded-corner tiles and a spacious pixel grid give the symbols room to breathe, across digital and print.

Details from the products have been woven into the set, including the 7 degree angle of the faucet handle — Real-world details, including the 7-degree pitch of GROHE’s faucet handles, were captured in the designs.

A selection of GROHE icons displaying the consistent detailing — The result is a hard-working, harmonious language of shapes, designed to perform, inform and inspire.