App Icon Ecosystem

Evolving TELUS’ mobile app icons into a scalable visual system for a growing digital product ecosystem.

Role
Digital Designer, Platform Adaptation

Scope
Visual systems
Brand identity
Icon exploration
Platform adaptation
Dark mode testing
Design QA
Production handoff

Organization
TELUS Brand

Year
2026

The Challenge

TELUS had outgrown its original mobile app icon strategy. As the app portfolio expanded across consumer, business, health, agriculture, smart home and security products, the system needed to become more flexible while still maintaining a clear connection to the TELUS brand.

Contribution

I translated the refreshed visual direction into platform-ready icon variations, supporting regular, dark mode and glass mode explorations while pressure-testing the system for clarity, consistency and scalability.

Visual Systems

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Visual Design

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Brand

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Icon explorations

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Visual Systems | Visual Design | Brand | Icon explorations |

Outgrowing a uniform system

The existing uniform icon approach created consistency, but limited the system’s ability to express product diversity and contextual relevance. As TELUS’ app ecosystem grew, the icon system needed to become more flexible while still maintaining a clear connection to the parent brand.

  • Uniform, but limited

    A single visual treatment helped create consistency, but made it harder for products to express their unique purpose and context.

  • Harder to scale

    What worked for a smaller set of apps became harder to differentiate as the portfolio expanded across multiple lines of business.

  • Products needed more distinction

    As apps grew across consumer, business, health, agriculture, smart home and security, each product needed a clearer sense of identity while still feeling part of TELUS.

  • Platform expectations changed

    New OS experiences introduced additional requirements, with icons needing to perform across light mode, dark mode and glass mode.

From uniformity to visual architecture

To support a broader app ecosystem, the icon direction needed to move beyond a single uniform treatment. The system was built around consistent TELUS brand foundations, while introducing more flexible product-specific elements like shape, colour and visual metaphor.

This allowed each app to express its purpose more clearly, while still feeling connected to the parent brand.

Designed for every display mode

From light mode to dark mode and glass mode, the system was built to retain clarity, recognition and brand consistency across evolving platform environments.