SageBrush (also called Brush) is a design tool interface in which users specify graphics by constructing sketches from a palette of primitives and/or partial designs. This allows users to create a large number of possible combinations of graphical elements, customize their spatial and structural relationships, and map them to the data they wish to visualize.

Below is a representation of SageBrush (click on the figure to see a larger version). Brush's interface consists of a design work area (center) into which users drag prototypes (top), graphemes (left), and data names (bottom).

Prototypes are partial designs, each with a spatial organization, graphemes, and/or encoders that commonly occur together. Encoders are references for interpreting properties of graphemes. For example, axes enable us to interpret (i.e., derive a data value from) the position of a bar in a chart. The work area currently contains two prototypes: a chart with a horizontal bar grapheme, a mark grapheme, and a text grapheme; and a table with a gauge grapheme.