[Brand design updates - Core App Components] Update Pictograms & Icons for internal builds by mikescamell · Pull Request #9552 · duckduckgo/Android

mikescamell · 2026-08-20T10:01:54Z

Task/Issue URL: https://app.asana.com/1/137249556945/project/488551667048375/task/1216445767066010?focus=true
Tech Design URL (if applicable):
API Proposals URL(s) (if applicable):

Description

Updates the app’s pictograms and animated icons to the latest brand artwork.
Adds 2026 pictogram overrides to internal builds so the updated artwork can be smoke-tested across representative app surfaces without checking every asset individually.
Adds a pictograms feature sub-flag under appBrandDesignUpdate.
Updates the feedback faces, Passwords keychain promotion, VPN header animation, Home Screen Widget promotion, and Home Screen Widget search-bar styling behind the pictograms feature flag.
Preserves the existing artwork and widget search-bar styling for these specifically gated areas when the pictograms feature flag is disabled.

Steps to test this PR

Testing every updated pictogram individually is not expected. The internal-build smoke test below covers representative surfaces. The focused sections cover the places where code changes were required.

Note

The resources under app/src/internal/res are internal-build overrides and remain updated regardless of the pictograms flag.

Turning the flag off provides before/after coverage for the explicitly gated code changes: feedback, Passwords, VPN, the widget promotion, and placed Home Screen Widget search bars.

The widget-picker and widget-configuration previews are internal resource overrides, so they remain updated when the flag is off. Use the placed Home Screen widgets for the flag-off comparison.

If screenshots of the protected Passwords screen are required, install using:

./gradlew :app:installInternalDebug -Pautofill-disable-auth-requirement

Internal pictogram smoke test

Visit a representative selection of the following areas:

Settings
- Appearance
- Passwords & Autofill
- Sync & Backup
- AI Features
- Privacy Pro
- Email Protection
- App Tracking Protection
- Web Tracking Protection
- Ad Blocking
- Cookie Pop-Up Protection
- Private Search
- Duck Player
Browser
- Empty Bookmarks
- Data Clearing
- Get Desktop Browser
- Add Widget to Home Screen
Import and Sync
- Import Passwords
- Import Bookmarks
- Create a Sync account
- Recover a Sync account
- Connected Sync state
Other
- Widget Configuration
- Unsupported-device screens
- Mac and Windows download instructions
- Onboarding search and Duck.ai screens
Open a representative selection of the surfaces above.
Confirm the updated pictograms are displayed.
Confirm no images are blank.
Confirm no images are clipped or stretched.
Confirm image colours remain correct in the Light theme.
Switch the app to the Dark theme.
Confirm theme-sensitive images remain legible in the Dark theme.

Flag ON — updated versions

Enable the pictograms flag

This is on by default for internal builds so you can skip for them

Open Settings → Other → Internal Settings → Feature Flag Inventory.
Find appBrandDesignUpdate.
Enable its pictograms sub-feature.
Force-close the app.
Relaunch the app.

Feedback

Open Settings → Share Feedback.
Confirm the updated positive and negative faces are displayed.
Select the positive response.
Confirm the updated positive pictogram is displayed.
Return to the initial feedback screen.
Select the negative response.
Confirm the updated negative pictogram is displayed.
Continue through the negative-feedback reasons.
Confirm the updated negative pictogram remains consistent across the flow.

Passwords keychain promotion

Use an empty Passwords store with the import promotion eligible.

VPN header

Probably easiest on an internalRelease build with pro subscription.

Open the app menu.
Select VPN.
Turn the VPN off.
Confirm the updated VPN header animation is displayed in the off state.
Turn the VPN on.
Confirm the updated VPN header animation is displayed in the on state.
Confirm the VPN status text matches the actual connection state.

Home Screen Widget promotion

Remove any existing DuckDuckGo Home Screen widgets before testing.

Open Settings → Add Widget to Home Screen.
Confirm the updated widget promotion artwork is displayed.
Confirm the artwork is not cropped.
Switch the app to the Dark theme.
Reopen Add Widget to Home Screen.
Confirm the Dark theme artwork is displayed.

Home Screen Widgets — Search and Favorites

Remove the widget before testing each theme so that every scenario starts from the widget picker.

Light

Dark

Home Screen Widgets — other variants

Flag OFF — previous versions

Disable the pictograms flag

Open Settings → Other → Internal Settings → Feature Flag Inventory.
Find appBrandDesignUpdate.
Disable its pictograms sub-feature.
Force-close the app.
Relaunch the app.

Feedback

Reopen Settings → Share Feedback.
Confirm the previous feedback faces are displayed.
Confirm the positive-feedback flow remains functional.
Confirm the negative-feedback flow remains functional.

Passwords keychain promotion

Reopen Settings → Passwords & Autofill → Passwords.
Confirm the previous animated keychain is displayed.
Confirm the promotion remains embedded within the Passwords screen.
Confirm the Passwords screen does not crash.

VPN header

Reopen VPN.
Confirm the previous VPN header is displayed.
Turn the VPN off.
Confirm the off state remains functional.
Turn the VPN on.
Confirm the on state remains functional.

Home Screen Widget promotion

Reopen Settings → Add Widget to Home Screen.
Confirm the previous widget promotion artwork is displayed.
Confirm the widget can still be added.

Home Screen Widgets

The internal picker/configuration previews remain updated in this state. Compare the placed widgets with the flag-on results.

UI changes

See here

Note

Low Risk
Visual/brand assets and an internal-only feature flag. No auth, data, or production default behaviour change.

Overview
Adds a pictograms sub-flag under appBrandDesignUpdate (internal by default) and ships 2026 pictogram/icon artwork as internal-build resource overrides so brand updates can be smoke-tested without swapping every production asset.

Most artwork is flavour-gated via app/src/internal/res. Call sites that change drawable type or behaviour (feedback faces, Passwords keychain promo, VPN header animation, home-screen widget promo) read pictograms() and keep the previous assets when the flag is off. The flag is also pre-warmed on app create with the existing theme/address-bar toggles.

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To see the specific tasks where the Asana app for GitHub is being used, see below:
- https://app.asana.com/0/0/1217694440856546

Gates the swaps that cannot ship as internal resource overrides because they change drawable type or call-site behaviour. Pre-warmed alongside the other sub-toggles so call sites can read it synchronously without a first-read disk hit on the main thread.

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Widget previews, Duck.ai settings searchboxes, the tab-list shield and the Duck.ai transitions. Flavour-gated: an app internal override shadows the same-named resource from main and from library modules, so Play and F-Droid builds are untouched. Includes the three input-screen tab selectors, which are overridden rather than the indicator layouts because the dark icon is set from Kotlin.

Six light/dark PNG pairs collapse to two theme-agnostic vectors. The 2026 assets drop the baked-in border, so the button border is drawn in code from theme attributes with the pictogram centred on top. The toggle is read synchronously after the existing render, so the flag-off path keeps its original ordering.

The 2026 replacement is a static pictogram rather than a Lottie, so both call sites cancel the animation and set a drawable on the existing LottieAnimationView instead of playing it. The raw animation stays for the flag-off path.

One theme-agnostic animation replaces the light/dark pair. The replacement is authored on a 2560x1920 canvas against the current 128x96, same 4:3 ratio, so the view is pinned to the original size on the enabled path only.

The 2026 artwork is too complex to vector, so this changes drawable type: the replacements ship as WebP across the density buckets while the existing vector drawables stay for the flag-off path.

Settings > Appearance now shows the top/bottom/split address bar pictograms in the 2026 palette: #1074CC over #CBEAFF, replacing #3969ef over #ccdaff. These ship as same-name resource overrides in the internal flavour rather than as a flag-gated second set of resources, so no production file changes and the Play and F-Droid builds are untouched. The brand-design onboarding picker is deliberately left alone. It reads its own _brand_design_update_ resource family, which uses a slightly different blue (#2F95EE / #4397E0), and reconciling the two palettes is out of scope for now. The old onboarding welcome page does read the same family as Settings, so it picks up the new artwork in internal builds too; it is being retired, so that is accepted. Verified by decoding the mergeInternalDebugResources output rather than by inspection, since a missed override fails silently: all twelve merged resources carry the new path data, and the _brand_design_update_ control still carries the old.

mikescamell force-pushed the feature/mikescamell/rebrand-pictograms branch from 209410d to 43a457b Compare August 20, 2026 11:27

cursor Bot reviewed Aug 20, 2026

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Comment thread app/src/internal/res/drawable/ad_blocking_header_128.xml

mikescamell force-pushed the feature/mikescamell/rebrand-pictograms branch from 43a457b to 8c9e5c3 Compare August 20, 2026 14:19

mikescamell changed the title ~~Add a pictograms sub-toggle for the 2026 pictogram swaps~~ [Brand design updates - Core App Components] Update Pictograms & Icons for internal builds Aug 20, 2026

mikescamell added 7 commits August 20, 2026 17:04

Add 2026 rebrand pictograms/icons as internal-only overrides

e001f13

Swap the VPN header animation behind the pictograms toggle

fa001fe

One theme-agnostic animation replaces the light/dark pair. The replacement is authored on a 2560x1920 canvas against the current 128x96, same 4:3 ratio, so the view is pinned to the original size on the enabled path only.

Swap the widget promo artwork to the 2026 raster assets

141406d

The 2026 artwork is too complex to vector, so this changes drawable type: the replacements ship as WebP across the density buckets while the existing vector drawables stay for the flag-off path.

mikescamell force-pushed the feature/mikescamell/rebrand-pictograms branch from 8c9e5c3 to eecb245 Compare August 20, 2026 15:07

Round the home screen widget search bars

550942b

mikescamell assigned LukasPaczos Aug 20, 2026

mikescamell marked this pull request as ready for review August 20, 2026 18:05

mikescamell requested a review from malmstein as a code owner August 20, 2026 18:05

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[Brand design updates - Core App Components] Update Pictograms & Icons for internal builds - #9552

[Brand design updates - Core App Components] Update Pictograms & Icons for internal builds#9552
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feature/mikescamell/rebrand-pictograms

mikescamell commented Aug 20, 2026 •

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mikescamell commented Aug 20, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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Description

Steps to test this PR

Internal pictogram smoke test

Flag ON — updated versions

Enable the pictograms flag

Feedback

Passwords keychain promotion

VPN header

Home Screen Widget promotion

Home Screen Widgets — Search and Favorites

Light

Dark

Home Screen Widgets — other variants

Flag OFF — previous versions

Disable the pictograms flag

Feedback

Passwords keychain promotion

VPN header

Home Screen Widget promotion

Home Screen Widgets

UI changes

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mikescamell commented Aug 20, 2026 •

edited

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