TeenSafe

Building for safe driving

Project

Design system

Role

Brand, illustration, visual design

Team

1 head of product
1 visual designer

Client

TeenSafe, Inc.

Challenge

How do we systemize a brand around distracted driving?

Background

TeenSafe is a leader in parental controls company that focused on monitoring device usage in children and teenagers. In early 2018, they shifted their focus to fighting distracted driving. With a new driving tool in development, I worked with the head of product and another visual designer to revitalize the TeenSafe brand.

Outcome

A standardized design system that embraces the TeenSafe mission and cross-functional team collaboration.

Legacy Brand Audit

When I joined TeenSafe, a legacy brand existed. The style guide was visually outdated and needed to be updated since it no longer matched the trajectory of the company’s product revamping. There were also many inconsistencies and little guidance on how to use the given design components.

Understanding the Problem Space

Without a proper system in place, passing off files among designers was messy. It dramatically slowed our workflows and lent itself to disorganization. Because of the disorganization, we were handing off files to developers that were inconsistent, giving the team double the workload to fix the mistakes.

Process

Defining New Colors

Implementing a revised color palette was the first challenge as the previous one felt too technical. Bright, modern colors were chosen to create friendlier, human values. Though distracted driving is a dangerous topic, it was crucial to ease users with a feeling of warmth and security in comparison to serious or alarming colors.

Setting a Type System

Open Sans is a versatile typeface chosen for its legibility. Since TeenSafe had products  across multiple mobile and desktop platforms, it was important to select a type that was applicable on a variety of digital mediums.

Creating an Icon Set

Custom icons added to the look and feel of the TeenSafe brand. The icons are driving inspired and can be used in different contexts. Each icon is comprised of minimal pictograms to remain discernable at smaller sizes.

Exploring Illustration Styles

In the beginning stages of the TeenSafe illustration style, the illustrations were flat and single-colored. Though they were quick to create, the team felt they lacked personality and felt stock. Colors and dimensionality were added in later revisions to add vitality.

Final

Final Illustration Styles

The implemented illustration style is vibrantly colorful. Illustration sets are applicable for onboarding, in-app, desktop, marketing, and web needs. The linework and offset fill of the illustrations give them a lively tonality that adds to the TeenSafe brand.

The Complete Design System

The result was a multi-page design system filled with color, type, logos, components, navigation, illustrations, and usage guidelines. This made for quicker visual updates for designers and developers.

Impact

By building a go-to document for all design-related needs, development handoff was seamless as well as cross-designer teamwork. A system also enforced consistency across TeenSafe's products and made them look polished and legitimate to consumers.