Bilingual Generation
A brand for bilingual kids, built from the language itself
Brand identity
Visual systems
The short version
I created the Bilingual Generation brand from scratch, out of the Spanish language and Latin American folk art.
Most language apps treat Spanish as a subject, not a culture. Bilingual Generation set out to build learning tools for Latine kids that start from who they already are.
The brand includes a logo, palette, type, shapes, and textures, and it now carries everything from the Bili app to flyers sent home to families, in English and Spanish.
The challenge
Learning that feels like home
Most heritage languages in the U.S. are lost by the third generation, and the tools kids use don't help.
Language apps tend to teach Spanish with generic characters and animals, without the culture that comes with it. Kids rarely see themselves in what they read, either: in 2022, only about 11% of new children's books were by Latine authors or illustrators, and fewer than 7% had a Latine main character. Bilingual Generation wanted the opposite: learning that feels like home, for kids ages 2 to 8, their families, and their teachers.
The brand had to feel joyful to a five-year-old, trustworthy to a teacher or district, and specific to Latine culture without becoming a cliché.
Source: Cooperative Children's Book Center, 2022.
RESEARCH
Marks from the language and its folk art
I started with a moodboard sorted by job, not by mood: color, texture, illustration, shapes, heritage and logo.
The references kept pointing to the same idea. Latin American folk art is bold, flat and full of small repeating marks, and Spanish has small marks of its own: the tilde, the accent, the diaeresis.
Then I went country by country across Latin America, collecting the symbols, textiles, food, architecture and folk art each one is known for. Bili's users come from all of these places, so the palette, textures and motifs had to feel familiar to a family from Peru as much as to one from Cuba, without belonging to any single country.
Country boards: the cultural symbols, textiles and folk art behind the palette, textures and motifs. Reference images by other artists and photographers.
THE WORDMARK
Three versions, from bouncy to balanced
The wordmark went through three versions.
1.0
Hand-lettered and bouncy
Its mixed capitals felt like a kid's handwriting. I pulled its swoops (the tails of the G, the L and the t) onto the same wave as the app's learning path, so the logo and the product move together. The second "i" in Bilingual became an exclamation mark, a nod to the double punctuation Spanish speakers grow up with, and a shortened "Bil!" became the app mark.
2.0
Simpler letters for new readers
I simplified the letters so they were easier to read, which matters when your readers are just learning to read. The dots of the "i"s became the Language Preservation Project's quotation marks, a quiet tie to the parent organization.
2.1
Every angle matched
In the final version, every terminal (the end of each stroke) is cut to the same few angles, so it still feels hand-made but holds together.
Branding 1.0 → 2.0 → 2.1.
2.1: every terminal cut to a shared angle.
The system
A system built to travel beyond Spanish
Every part of the system comes from the language or its folk art, and it's built to flex as the brand grows.
LOGO
A logo that travels
Clean, geometric letters with playful curves, each echoing the angles in the B and G. "Bili," the short version, became the app icon and the app's name. The wordmark flexes with culturally specific motifs, so it can grow beyond Spanish, from an Español (Spanish) version to a Chinese one.
COLOR
A palette named in Spanish
Pulled from Latine folk art: Flamenco, Desierto (desert), Naranja (orange), Selva (jungle), Cielo (sky), Sol (sun), and Arena (sand). For the app, I built tints and shades of each color into a full set of UI tokens for buttons, cards, and surfaces.
Brand colors and skin tones.
UI tokens for the app.
TYPE
One variable font, 329 languages
Outfit is open source. Bold, geometric letterforms are among the easiest for young children to read, and one variable font keeps the app fast.
Outfit, from headings to body text.
SHAPES
Accents, tildes, and dots
Spanish's own marks became the brand's shapes, framing photos and copy as a quiet nod to language learning. They repeat into textures inspired by Central and South American art, with room to add more cultures as the brand grows.
Shapes and the textures built from them.
ILLUSTRATION
Bold, naïve, and full of detail
A bold, naïve illustration style, like colored-pencil drawings or construction-paper cutouts, with plenty of white space so cultural details in clothing, food, and places can shine. The style builds on Bili, the mascot. Photography features young Latine learners with their families. A set of skin tones was defined from the start, so every illustration represents the kids using the app.
The illustration style.
Photography in brand layouts.
LAUNCH
App Store screenshots as a seven-frame story
The App Store is where most families meet Bili first.
So I designed the screenshots as a seven-frame story rather than a gallery. Each frame carries one idea, one palette color and the brand's accent shapes, so the set reads as a sequence when you swipe. I designed the iPhone set first, then rebuilt it for iPad. The headlines were written by the Bili team.
App Store screenshots, iPad.
Google Play feature graphic.
THE RESULT
A system the team runs on its own
The real test of a brand system is what happens when the designer isn't in the room.
The Bili team makes its own social posts in Canva, and they still look like the brand: the palette, Outfit, the BG and Bil! marks, the brand shapes and the Bili character. These are the team's designs, not mine. I'm showing them because they prove the system holds up.
Posts made by the Bili team in Canva using the brand system.
What I learned
Start from what the audience already owns
The accents and punctuation Spanish speakers know by heart made the brand feel familiar before anyone read a word.
A brand is proven when you’re not in the room
The Bili team makes its own posts in Canva, and they still look like Bilingual Generation. That’s the test I design for now.
Build for the next culture, not just this one
Designing the logo and textures to flex meant the brand could grow beyond Spanish without starting over.
