reCAPTCHA

Question

How can we bring more clarity and personality to reCAPTCHA’s developer communications?

Solution

Invisible Element created a playful visual system with custom illustrations and email templates to help reCAPTCHA connect with millions of users.

Project Details

Client: Alphabet / reCAPTCHA

Creative Director: Hans Engebretsen

Product Lead: Badr Salmi

Services: Design, Illustration

Discovery

Google’s reCAPTCHA platform had broad recognition but minimal visual branding beyond its logo. With a growing developer base and product updates to share, the team needed a way to communicate more clearly—and more memorably. Working with Hans Engebretsen, we set out to create a system that would feel intentional, adaptable, and distinctly reCAPTCHA.

Process

We started by exploring tone and visual direction, landing on a clean but character-forward style that allowed for playfulness without compromising professionalism.

One of our key contributions was the creation of “Bad Bad”—a whimsical, shapeshifting blob character that embodied online threats like bots and other malicious actors. Alongside this, we developed a set of custom spot illustrations and iconography that could scale across emails, digital platforms, and future collateral.

Results

The final system included styled templates for three core lifecycle emails sent to millions of reCAPTCHA developers and enterprise users. With built-in flexibility around color, layout, and tone, the assets extended reCAPTCHA’s visual language into a more expressive space—supporting product communications and reinforcing brand recognition across multiple touchpoints.