Pharma companies need visual branding
Researchers reading through a manuscript will encounter long swathes of text detailing the research they conducted and the rationale behind it. Along the way, they will review figures and tables designed to depict the data to support the conclusions the manuscript producers arrived at.
During the review process, scientists may examine the numbers behind the figures and the statistical significance of the differences identified. Much less so will they examine a company’s visual brand.
But in reality, it’s those very figures that are one of the most important things we need to consider. What colours will you use to represent a given dataset? How will your data look in relation to your website, your other sales assets, and your logo? If you leave these questions unanswered, you could leave yourself projecting a scattered brand, one that scientists and other key decision makers may find difficult to remember.
This is exactly the kind of problem that visual communicators address through their line of work.
The interview
On life sciences branding
PN: Let’s begin with the visual aspects of branding, since that’s how a company presents itself to the world. What comprises a brand colour set?
CDP: Companies often think that a brand colour set comprises just their primary and secondary colour. But branding is much more than that. In fact, there are at least four types of colours to consider:
- Core brand colours: These colour sets represent the company’s core identity. Your GenoWrite logo’s primary core colours are blue, white, and light green for example.
- Functional colours: These colours expand from the core brand colours for visualizing data. They help make the key points from the data clear while retaining the company’s identity.
- Neutral/supporting tones: These colours fill the background and text in online and paper-based content.
- Accessibility considerations: This last set of colours helps make websites and paper-based content more readable for any audience. In addition to colours, factors such as contrast and colourblind safety are consider in the readability of a content or website piece.
PN: What are the most important factors that a life sciences company should consider when building their visual identity?
CDP: Having a colour palette alone isn’t enough to produce a visual brand. If you use your colours inconsistently in your figures, you can create more confusion than clarity regarding your identity. That’s what happened when I worked with a company preparing regulatory-facing documents alongside their investor materials. Their approach with their brand colours created contradictions within the same slide presentation.
That’s why companies need to consider the following factors when selecting and applying their colours for their marketing efforts:
- Clarity and contrast: How do the colours appear on the page when applied onto figures, tables, and other datasets? Can they be easily interpreted?
- Consistency across media: Can the colours reflect the company’s brand across different print and digital formats?
- Emotional tone: What kinds of reactions and impressions do you want to evoke with your colours? How will you use that demonstrate innovation and precision while building trust?
- Scalability: Can the colour schemes selected work with complex figures and simple icons?
In my experience, colour becomes dangerous when it’s purely aesthetic. But when it’s systematized, it becomes a tool for trust, especially in scientific communication where misinterpretation has real consequences.
On brand differentiation from competitors and for audiences
PN: With so many life science companies comes the struggle to differentiate themselves. How can a visual illustrator and artist help a highly technical company realize a visual identity that distinguishes them without sacrificing scientific merit?
CDP: As a scientific illustrator, my role is to translate complexity into clarity without diluting accuracy. Many companies operate in visually crowded spaces where everything starts to look the same: blue gradients, generic molecular graphics, stock icons. Differentiation comes from building a visual language rooted in the science itself.
I work closely with researchers to identify what truly makes them unique, whether it’s a mechanism of action, a platform technology, or a dataset. That becomes the foundations through which I develop custom visual motifs from. This could mean a distinctive way of rendering pathways, a consistent diagram style, or even how motion is used in animations.
The key is that the visuals are not decorative, but interpretive instead. When done well, they enhance scientific credibility because they show deep understanding, not simplification.
PN: How does knowing who you’re speaking with — whether an investor, scientist, a care provider, or a patient — affect how you structure and format the same piece of data in a technical white paper, as opposed to something more investor-facing?
CDP: The key is knowing that the same data can and should be structured very differently depending on the audience:
- Scientists want depth, methodology, nuance. Figures can be dense, with detailed labels and full datasets.
- Investors need clarity, hierarchy, and narrative. They’re looking for significance, differentiation, and outcomes.
- Patients need simplicity, empathy, and clarity without jargon
Much like how you can’t create the same document for all audiences, you can’t create the same figure for all of them. I once worked on a dataset that had to serve three purposes simultaneously: a publication, an investor pitch, and a patient-facing explainer. Initially, the team tried to create one “universal” figure, and it failed for all three. That’s because each audience has very different needs they need addressed when they’re looking at the same piece of information.
That’s why we need to start thinking in terms of information layers. For a white paper, I might include full annotations, multiple panels, and detailed legends. For an investor deck, I distill that into a single, clean visual that highlights the key takeaway. That way, we provide the information layers appropriate to each audience’s needs.
PN: What you’ve described here sounds like an extremely personalized process. It goes to show that the best scientific figures are like human art; it places a lot of intent with how its information is communicated. How has becoming a scientific artist for pharma companies affected how you communicate science?
CDP: For me, scientific visualizations is also deeply personal. My background in science taught me how frustrating it can be to navigate complex ideas through unclear visuals or overly dense text. I remember spending hours trying to piece together processes that could have been understood in minutes with the right diagram. That experience still shapes how I work today; I’m always thinking about the person on the other end, whether it’s a scientist, an investor, or someone new to the field.
On the white space between content
PN: A lot of companies think about what to include in a technical document, but not nearly as much time on the space in between. What advice would you give to companies when deciding whether to stuff their document with lots of figures or leave more white space to ensure readability?
CDP: White space is often misunderstood as “empty,” but it’s one of the most powerful tools we have. It creates rhythm, directs attention, and allows complex ideas to breathe.
At the same time, as a visual thinker, I’m a big fan of figures. I once worked with a company that asked me to help redesign their material and manufacturing protocols to make them more visual. It turned out to be an incredibly effective approach.
It also brought me back to my own days in the lab, standing at the bench and wishing for a clear diagram instead of long blocks of text, text that was often dense and not always easy to interpret. A well-designed figure can communicate a process instantly, reducing ambiguity and saving time.
So, it’s not about choosing between visuals and space; it’s about balance. Use figures where they add clarity and use white space to make sure those figures can be understood.
Advice for life science companies preparing visuals
PN: What’s the biggest piece of advice you would give a biotech or biopharma company as they decide how to present their figures across different media formats? Lean in on a story if you can!
CDP: One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned came from a biotech company I worked with early in my career. They had a beautifully detailed mechanism-of-action figure, perfect for a journal submission, but they were trying to use the exact same figure everywhere: investor decks, website, conference posters. It wasn’t working: a figure doesn’t succeed only because it’s accurate, it succeeds because it’s understood.
We ended up creating a family of figures instead:
- A highly detailed version for scientific audiences
- A simplified, step-by-step version for presentations
- A single panel “hero” visual for marketing
Each version told the same story but at the right level of complexity for its context.
So, my biggest advice is this: don’t think of figures as static assets. Think of them as adaptable storytelling tools.
Design with flexibility in mind from the start. So, when designing across formats, companies should always think in terms of progressive disclosure:
- What’s the 5-second takeaway?
- What’s the 30-second explanation?
- Where’s the deep dive?
Designing with those layers in mind allows the same scientific story to live effectively across a paper, a slide, or a website without losing its integrity. The goal isn’t just to show data, it’s to make sure the right audience understands it at the right moment.
Contact Caterina and GenoWrite
If you want to see a sample of the work that Caterina has done for pharma companies, check out her website through the left button below. You can also continue the conversation with her and engage with her expertise to build a brand that best reflects what you’re developing in your pharma company.
If you’re a talented visual communicator seeking to engage with an agency that helps life science companies develop their brand, reach out to us through the right button below. If you’re a company struggling to define your visual identity, you can contact us as well.
