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This question popped into my head when I was discussing modelling an Imperial Guard chaplain with a friend.
We were talking about a simple, rugged, chaplain born of the ranks, not an implant from the ostentatious church. We were looking for inspiration at WW2 chaplains, who often had a simple Christian cross painted on their helmet. The point here is that simple Christian cross. Two lines to make an instantly recognisable symbol. Christianity also has the fish (just two overlapping curves). The Islamic moon; the Jewish star; the Hindu swastika or Om, all these religions have comparable symbols.

So I got to thinking, does the Imperial have such a simple symbol they can use? The aquila is omni-present, but is quite a complex design with wings, feet, and two heads, I would struggle to quickly replicate it well enough to be recognisable I feel.
The ecclesiarchy also has a stylised 'i' with a skull in the middle. But again, that's a fairly complex design.

One idea I had was a curvy 'v' bird representation.
The Emperor used to use a lightning bolt as his personal symbol, it would fit the bill but I don't believe it's used at all in the 41st millenium? Except maybe as the personal symbol of the Custodes.
Or perhaps the Imperium genuinely has no such recognised symbol. Do you not love The Emperor enough to draw a proper one!?
Has anyone encountered a reference to something like this in a book? Maybe even a proper design somewhere.

Loyalists on Isstvan III would scratch crude aquila shapes onto their armour to mark themselves to their comrades and distance themselves from the Traitors. A little V shape with small lines for the heads and legs served them well enough, I'm sure it would work fine elsewhere.

Oh cool, that's exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of!

Sort of a large V with a small X in the middle?

The Cain books also reference a hand symbol “thumbing the palm” as a stylised eagle wing that you could probably render as a pictorial tag

There are simple aquilas though, no? Basically a triangle with a few notches:

The "Imperialis" is the winged skull which is basically a generic loyalist symbol but especially associated with the army (and later the guard).

It exists as simplified and fancy versions.





And a really, really simplified version is a circle between two horizontal bars.

Now you mention it, I'm pretty sure I've seen the circle and two bars before.

The imperium has an ecclesiastical symbol made in the same manner as a catholic sign of the cross. Unsure if they still use this method in background, but it was there in older books.

You touch your shoulders as the wings, your sternum as the tail and the two heads at your collar bone. Like you're connecting the dots on a chest eagle.

The sign of the aquila is the one where people hook their thumbs together and splay their hands across their chest to physically imitate the aquila.

You could easily take the crossing of the chest symbol as the most basic outline of an aquila as possible. It's pretty much a kite.