Tandem

Background

Some apps are built to keep kids quiet, but Tandem is made to get them talking. It’s an AI-driven iOS/Android app that helps parents and young children create personalised storybooks, fact books and activities together.

Built around the idea that screen time can be genuinely connecting rather than isolating, it uses safe, adaptive AI to generate illustrated stories that evolve with a child’s age, interests and reading level.

The founders came to me with a rough prototype, but a clear mission and I helped take them from a barebones app to something investors and parents could both believe in.

Logotype

The first challenge was finding a visual voice that felt fun and delightful for children, while being approachable and trustworthy for parents. I developed the logotype, colour palette and design system from this standpoint, always remembering the importance of the adult/child relationship.

Product design

The lion’s share of my work was spent on product design, mapping out the core user flows and designing out a coherent, friendly UI that would work for all ages. This needed to cover a lot of features including onboarding, avatar creation, story generation, the reading experience, subscription management and more.

I also prototyped in Figma and Swift to get a feel for interactions and movement between screens.

Tan and Dem

A key part of Tandem’s charm is its cast of illustrated characters that I created. The two robot mascots, Tan and Dem, guide the user through the app experience and feature at key moments. They exist as both a brand expression and a representation of the models that power the app.

Modular avatars

I also devised a set of modular animals and human characters that could be created by adults and kids alike to represent them in the app. They work as a ‘tandem’ pair to emphasise the app’s focus on co-creation and relationship building. They start from a single base shape that can be customised with features and personalised colours.

Typography

To reinforce the app’s playful nature, I wanted a display typeface that felt friendly and chunky with rounded geometry. I ultimately settled on Wallop by Displaay, using its open type alternates to simplify core glyphs like the a. Wallop was paired with Inter for body type as its a very readable font that acts as a great workhorse in most contexts.

Outcome

Shortly after I completed my work with Early Ideas, they closed a £550,000 pre-seed round through Bethnal Green Ventures, and to date have received only five star reviews on the App Store.