A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture are configured to substitute an element in a vector-based computer generated illustration. A computer generated illustration comprised of vector geometry is obtained. A block that consists of one or more referenced first ancillary elements is also obtained. An instance of the block is then placed into the illustration. The instance identifies one of the first ancillary elements in the block. Further, the identified first ancillary element is displayed in the illustration at a location where the instance was placed. The block may also be placed over an existing ancillary element which would cause the replacement of all similar ancillary elements with instances of the block.