Summary
Opries should use imagery and icons with restraint. Until there is a strong library of relevant, high-quality Opries photography, public materials should lean on typography, grids, tables, character icons, subtle motifs, and mono illustrative elements rather than generic environmental images.
Visual cues should support understanding. They should not become decoration, require a purchased icon set, or carry meaning without text.
Image Direction
Use real imagery only when it adds trust, context, or evidence. Avoid using placeholder nature photography simply to make a page feel more environmental.
Imagery should show real stewardship, place, tools, records, people, and landscape context. Prefer images that feel specific to Australian Landcare and NRM work rather than generic nature photography.
If suitable images are not available, use structured layout, colour, text hierarchy, tables, and character-based cues instead.
Use
| Use | Guidance |
|---|---|
| Website | Use real program activity, field days, waterways, revegetation, monitoring, and group work only when image quality and permission are suitable. |
| Product | Use sparingly. Product screens should prioritise information clarity. |
| Reports | Use images to anchor place and activity, then let tables and records carry detail. |
| Social/newsletter | Show people doing practical work, with permission and context. |
| Documents | Prefer clear structure and evidence before imagery. Use images only when they clarify place, work, or proof. |
Avoid
Avoid heavy filters, vague aerials without context, dark overlays that hide detail, staged corporate photos, generic stock images, and symbolic images that could apply to any environmental organisation.
Character Icons
For v1, Opries should prefer text-rendered character icons inside body copy, tables, checklists, forms, and document guidance. Character icons are simple, durable, printable, easy to copy into Word-style documents, and do not require buying or loading an icon set.
Use them with a word label so the meaning is not carried by the symbol alone.
| Meaning | Preferred character cue | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Use / recommended | ✓ Use | Use and avoid tables, checks, preferred actions |
| Avoid / not recommended | ✕ Avoid | Use and avoid tables, misuse examples, exclusions |
| Next / continue | → Next | Process steps, next actions, navigation labels |
| Included | + Included | Proposal inclusions, scope, package contents |
| Excluded | − Excluded | Scope exclusions, out-of-scope items, limits |
| Note / information | • Note | Neutral supporting notes where a heading is too heavy |
| Coordinating point | ○ or the Opries hollow marker | Brand motif, section marker, identity-adjacent cue |
| Alert / check carefully | ! Check | Cautions, review points, print checks; use sparingly |
Do not use icons alone for essential meaning. Write ✓ Use, not only ✓. Write ✕ Avoid, not only ✕.
Icon and Motif Layers
Use the smallest visual layer that solves the communication problem.
| Layer | Use | Avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Character cues | Dense text, tables, lists, checks, inclusions, exclusions, and guidance | Using decorative pictograms where words and simple symbols are clearer |
| Functional icons | Buttons, utility actions, product controls, download/print/search/copy actions | Using icon-only controls without labels or accessible names |
| Mono motifs | Section rhythm, business cases, proposal covers, subtle background support, landing page texture | Making the motif the main message or letting it compete with content |
| Custom pictograms | Repeated Opries-specific concepts that need faster recognition over time | Creating a full icon set before the meaning and use case are stable |
Character cues should be the first point for text-heavy material. Larger websites, business cases, proposals, and public pages may need subtle motifs so they do not become visually flat or exhausting.
Motifs
Motifs should be simple enough to render in text, CSS, or basic vector form. The strongest current motif is the coordinating point: the hollow work marker used in the logotype and identifier.
| Motif | Meaning | Guidance |
|---|---|---|
| Hollow marker | A coordinating point for many works | Use sparingly for identity, section cues, or app/icon exploration |
| Horizontal rule | Structure, separation, auditability | Use thin rules to clarify groups, tables, metadata, and document sections |
| Open table rows | Comparison and scanability | Prefer horizontal row rules over boxed cells for text-heavy tables |
| Numbered steps | Sequence and action | Use for workflows, onboarding, document processes, and instructions |
| Contour lines | Landform, field context, mapping, and grounded warmth | Use as the preferred organic mono motif for covers, section backgrounds, and large quiet areas |
| Dot grid | Many works, records, sites, tasks, or obligations being coordinated | Use as a very subtle background or section marker |
| Field lines | Survey, mapping, documents, pathways, or structured work | Use as mono linework behind covers or dividers |
| Register rows | Evidence, records, reporting, audit trails | Use as abstract line rhythm in business cases or product-adjacent pages |
| Paperbark texture line | Grounded Australian material cue | Use only as simplified mono linework, not as a busy texture |
Avoid decorative icon patterns, environmental clip art, leaf icons, generic map pins, and complex line illustrations unless they are deliberately developed as part of a later Opries illustration system.
Mono Illustrative Elements
Mono illustrative elements can help larger materials feel designed without relying on stock photography. They should be quiet, abstract, and structural: closer to diagrams, linework, maps, registers, and field notes than illustration for illustration's sake.
| Element | Best for | Guidance |
|---|---|---|
| Contour line fields | Website hero sections, proposal covers, business case dividers, chapter openers | Use organic mono linework to bring land and mapping context into structured layouts |
| Subtle background linework | Website hero sections, proposal covers, business case dividers | Use one colour at low contrast, usually Eucalypt, Earth, Paperbark, or a secondary colour tint |
| Coordinating point clusters | Documents about many projects, sites, obligations, or records | Use small hollow circles or dot grids aligned to the page grid |
| Abstract register lines | Governance, evidence, audit, documents, and reporting material | Use horizontal rules, row rhythms, and light metadata blocks |
| Map-like paths | Workflows, approvals, site visits, and project movement | Use simple line paths without pretending to be a real map |
| Section markers | Long documents, business cases, proposal chapters | Use a small motif beside headings or in the margin, always secondary to the heading text |
Keep mono illustration subtle and subordinate. It should create rhythm, place, and identity without becoming a background that reduces contrast or makes the page harder to read.
Contour Line Motif
Contour lines are the preferred warmth motif for Opries. They bring land management, mapping, fieldwork, and an organic irregularity into the system without relying on generic nature photography or decorative environmental symbols.
Use contour lines as controlled visual "dirt and scuffing": enough irregularity to soften the grid, not enough to make the page feel messy.
| Use | Guidance |
|---|---|
| Website sections | Use faint contour lines in a corner, edge, or background band while keeping text on a clean readable surface |
| Business case cover | Use contour lines as a low-contrast background field behind the title area or in the outer margin |
| Proposal divider | Use a cropped contour detail to separate major sections without adding a full illustration |
| Document margin | Use a very light contour fragment where the page needs warmth but not more content |
| Product-adjacent public material | Use contour lines to suggest land, place, planning, and coordination without showing a literal landscape |
Contour lines should be abstract, not a traceable real property, culturally sensitive site, or private location unless permission and context are clear.
Motif Rules
- Use motifs to support hierarchy, not to fill empty space.
- Keep motifs aligned to the document or screen grid.
- Prefer one-colour or two-tone treatments.
- Keep opacity and contrast low enough that text remains dominant.
- Do not place detailed motifs behind body text.
- Use contour motifs to soften strict grids, not to introduce visual clutter.
- Do not use leaf, globe, generic eco, or stock sustainability symbols as the main Opries visual idea.
- Treat motifs as reusable system elements, not one-off decoration.
Accessibility
Images should support understanding, not carry essential meaning alone. When imagery is used to explain a public program, workflow, or product concept, pair it with clear headings, captions, alt text, or adjacent explanation. Do not assume viewers can see, interpret, or culturally read an image in the same way.
Character icons should also be treated carefully. Screen readers and software can announce symbols differently, so pair symbols with visible text labels and write the surrounding sentence so it still makes sense if the symbol is skipped.
Prefer characters that render reliably in common system fonts and office tools. Avoid emoji, novelty symbols, icon fonts, and decorative Unicode characters whose appearance changes dramatically across devices.
Captions
Captions should include place, activity, date or program where appropriate, and credit or permission notes when required.
Checks
- Does the image show real work, place, or context?
- Does it avoid generic environmental symbolism?
- If no suitable image exists, does the layout still communicate clearly without one?
- Are character icons paired with text labels?
- Can the visual cue work in web, Word-style documents, PDF, and print?
- Is permission, credit, and cultural context handled correctly?
- Is essential meaning repeated in text, caption, or alt text?