In biotech and life sciences, design isn’t just about making things look nice—it’s about making complex science easier to understand, building trust with your audience, and keeping your brand top-of-mind in a competitive space.
Your audience (researchers, clinicians, CEOs, and academics) is smart, busy, and detail oriented. The right design can be the difference between someone engaging with your brand or moving on.
At Samba Scientific, we’ve helped dozens of biotech and life science companies build design systems that communicate clearly, look polished, and support business growth. Here are some of our top design best practices.
Key Takeaways
- Accessibility ensures your message reaches more people and builds credibility.
- Clean, professional design makes complex science easy to follow.
- Consistency across channels builds recognition and trust.
- Visuals are powerful tools to simplify complexity and engage audiences.
1. Make Accessibility a Priority
- Stick to high-contrast colors so text is easy to read.
- Choose fonts that work well across screen sizes.
- Add alt text to every graphic and image.
- Organize content so users can find what they need quickly.
2. Keep It Clean and Professional
In science, clarity is everything. A cluttered design makes your audience work harder to understand your message—and nobody has time for that.
Think about your website or collateral layouts the same way that you’d think about a poster presentation at a conference: clean, organized, and visually sharp. Use white space, consistent typography, and thoughtful hierarchy to guide the eye. When in doubt, simpler is better.
We put this into practice when working with a company on a thoughtful rebrand, where the biotech client needed a refreshed identity that felt modern but still professional. The result? A clean system that reflected their evolving role in the industry.
3. Know When to Be Playful
Not every piece of content needs to feel like a peer-reviewed journal. Some moments—like conference booths, product launches, or social campaigns—are the perfect time to have fun with color, bold visuals, or interactivity.
The key is balance. Even when you’re experimenting, you want your design to stay rooted in your branding, so that your audience recognizes you no matter where they see you.
For example, when we helped one client work on increasing brand recognition with creative design, we used eye-catching visuals across digital ads that stayed consistent with the client’s identity—helping them stand out without losing credibility.
4. Choose Images That Actually Resonate
We’ve all seen the same tired stock photos of “scientists” with perfectly white lab coats and blue or green liquids in beakers. Audiences in this industry know when something feels inauthentic.
Instead of cliche stock imagery:
- Use images of your real products, team, or facilities whenever possible.
- When stock is necessary, pick modern, authentic visuals that reflect real science.
- Don’t forget about custom graphics—illustrations, data visuals, and animations can go a long way in explaining complex processes.
The right visuals add both credibility and clarity when connecting with your target audience.
5. Stay Consistent for Recognition
- Standardize your fonts, colors, and logo usage.
- Create brand guidelines and share them with anyone creating content for you.
- Revisit your system regularly to make sure that it grows with your company.
6. Don’t Forget Mobile
Decision-makers in biotech are just as likely to check your site on their phone as on a desktop. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re losing valuable opportunities.
A mobile-first mindset ensures that your content looks sharp, loads fast, and is easy to navigate no matter the device. That means testing your designs across different screen sizes before launch.
We dive deeper into this in our blog on designing a functional and effective biotech website if you’d like to learn more.
7. Use Visuals to Simplify the Complex
One of design’s superpowers is making complicated science easy to grasp. Whether it’s through infographics, schematic diagrams, or animations, visuals can take dense technical information and turn it into something your audience wants to engage with.
Good visuals don’t oversimplify your science—they make it accessible, memorable, and actionable.
Why Samba?
Design in biotech and life sciences requires a unique balance of creativity and accuracy. At Samba, we understand both sides: the science and the storytelling. We’ve helped companies rebrand, build websites, and create engaging collateral that doesn’t just look great—it drives meaningful results.
Whether you’re refreshing your website, preparing for a big conference, or looking to simplify your science for a wider audience, our team is here to help.
Get in touch with us today to see how we can take your biotech design to the next level.
