Besedo

Besedo brought me in as a design consultant to help give their brand, website, and visual language a much-needed refresh. Working closely with their CMO, I set out to rethink as much as possible during my time with the team—from simplifying components and updating the site’s look and feel, to refining colors, typography, and imagery. A lot of that work is still being developed and rolled out, but the foundation is there—and solid.

My role:

Brand Design

Web Design

Illustration

Besedo supports digital platforms of all sizes with content moderation. They help improve content quality and user experience with AI and human powered content moderation.

www.besedo.com

Brand Colors

Besedo already had a solid brand palette, so I focused on refining it. I adjusted a few tones—giving the pink more room to shine—and built out tints and shades to work across web, UI, and social. I also created clear, practical guidelines for color combos to keep things consistent in everyday design work.

Refined brand Colors.

Tints & shades

Color combos for brand colors, tints & shades

I provided example compositions as references for how to combine and apply the palette in real use.

A new direction in type

Besedos previous typeface felt too playful. We needed something more mature, clean, and versatile. I knew I wanted to go with something rooted in Swiss design, and we landed on Suisse Int’l as the new primary typeface. To support it, I also selected Suisse Works and Suisse Mono from the same family as complementary styles.

Typographic scales

I defined a full set of typographic rules for web use—covering headings, body text, and UI labels across all breakpoints. The type scale was carefully built to flow smoothly across different devices and screen sizes, creating a clean, readable experience from mobile to desktop.

Simplifying the visual language

Besedo’s illustration and imagery needed a refresh to match the cleaner, more grown-up website. I simplified how UI elements were shown, reduced detail, and added a mono font to tie things together. A hand-drawn font brought back some personality and playfulness from the old brand. The end result: a lighter, minimal feel that fits the new direction.

an image of the old illustration style for besed. Featuring a toxic converstation

OLD STYLE:
‍Colorful cartoony graphics & detailed UI

UPDATED STYLE:
Simplified, Light & bright. Real people. More grown up look.

An illustration of an ad selling converse shoes

A few examples of illustrations/imagery I did, featuring the updated visuals.

A visual refresh for the Besedo website

Besedo wanted to move away from the old, playful and cartoony look—limiting colors, brightening things up, and aiming for a more grown-up, refined style that still had character. I worked through the site and created a set of components based on the new direction.

Design components

I focused on creating easy-to-use components that could mix, match, and stack—so the team at Besedo could build new pages quickly.

Instead of chasing flashy concepts, I prioritized usability and built a flexible set of components that both designers and developers could easily work with, helping them get pages out faster.

Redesigning key pages

I redesigned a set of key pages to showcase how the new components could come together—setting a visual foundation for future designs.

Figma component lib

A flexible, future-ready component library

I pulled all the components I designed into a solid Figma library—complete with styles, variables, colors and other elements. It gives Besedo a clear visual system to build from and makes it easier to stay consistent as they grow.

Smaller fixes that add up

I also took care of a bunch of smaller things—like reworking the buttons and setting rules for how to use them, picking an icon library that matched the new look, and choosing neutral utility colors for both web and marketing use.

Some icons from the new lib.

Revamped button design

Defined neutral tones for use along brand colors

A living document for a growing brand

I put together a Visual Guidelines doc to bring together everything we’d defined—color usage, typography, imagery, logo rules, etc. It’s a go-to reference for anyone working with the brand and gives Besedo a solid base they can keep building on as things evolve.

Parts of Visual Guidelines

Images of slides from the Besedo Style guide

A fun and focused refresh that touched a lot of moving parts. I got a lot done in a short time, and the work sets up Besedo with a solid foundation to build on.