Fruitful Design: Building Puberry’s visual identity

I led the redesign of Puberry’s visual identity, creating a playful yet age appropriate brand for an app that helps adolescents learn about puberty. I developed a kid-friendly visual language, with fruit avatars, vibrant colors, and approachable typography, that made the product engaging for kids while reassuring for parents and educators.

About Puberry

Puberry is a gamified app that helps adolescents understand the changes happening in their bodies. The team wanted the app to feel fun and approachable for kids, while still being trustworthy for parents and educators.

problem

When I joined the project, the team only had low fidelity wireframes and no established brand identity to guide the look and feel. Without a visual foundation, they were stuck, unable to move the product into high fidelity in a way that felt cohesive. What they needed was a visual identity that was playful and approachable, but one that enhanced the product rather than distracting from it.

My role

Designer (with 2 other designers, 1 engineer, and the Puberry team). Built the visual foundation that took Puberry from wireframes to high-fidelity by creating its visual identity, colors, typography, and fruit avatars, and applying it across features like onboarding, the period tracker, and the fruit market.

Discovery: Understanding the Vision

The team was clear on Puberry’s purpose but they didn’t yet know what the product should feel or look like. We worked with them to define the qualities that would guide the brand identity. They emphasized three key goals:

☀️ Inviting: warm and approachable, with visuals that felt familiar and comfortable, creating a safe space to explore sensitive topics

🤪 Playful: fun and lighthearted, adding delight without being childish

💪 Empowering: encouraged kids to feel excited about exploring and learning about puberty for themselves

Design process

Fruit Avatars: A Playful Entry Point

Design Approach: The Puberry team wanted a character at the heart of their app, something kids could connect with and recognize. I decided to build that character system around fruit. The choice connected directly to the name “Puberry,” gave us a variety of options to work with, and tapped into familiarity kids.

I designed a set of fruit based avatars that were cheerful, simple, and expressive. Each character used friendly shapes and bright colors, designed to work at small sizes while still feeling engaging across different screens.

Impact: Fruit created a universal, lighthearted metaphor that was approachable and non-intimidating. It allowed kids to safely choose an avatar without relying on personal photos or abstract icons that might feel awkward. Paired with the color palette, the avatars became the heart of Puberry’s brand, playful, familiar, and instantly recognizable.

Visual Language: Fresh, Friendly, and Approachable

Design Approach: I developed a visual language built around fruit inspired colors and rounded typography. The palette paired vibrant, energetic accents with softer neutrals, creating a look that was lively without feeling chaotic. Typography followed the same principle, rounded sans serifs that felt approachable and easy to read, with clear hierarchy and generous spacing to keep content digestible on small screens.

Design Rationale: Together, color and type set the tone for Puberry. The colors reinforced the fruit avatars while keeping the interface fresh and engaging. The typography softened the reading experience, helping puberty content feel less clinical and more approachable. By balancing energy with clarity, the visual language gave the product a consistent and inviting foundation.

Applying the Identity to Screens

Design Approach: Once the core identity was defined, Puberry asked us to move three core sections from wireframes into high fidelity: onboarding, the profile, and the period tracker. Each screen was designed to feel consistent with the brand while keeping the focus on usability.

Design Rationale: Moving these flows into high fidelity gave us clarity on what worked well and where tweaks might be needed. The visuals brought the Puberry screens to life, transforming wireframes into a true mobile experience. By applying the identity across different touchpoints, we created a foundation the team could continue building on.

What Kids and Parents Told Us

Design Approach: We tested the new visuals with Puberry’s target audience of 9–12 year olds to see how they responded to the brand in action. Sessions focused on three core flows, onboarding, the period tracker, and the fruit market, to evaluate both usability and emotional response.

What We Learned:

Avatars resonated immediately → many kids immediately reacted with a huge smile and said they were "so cute". Some even asked if the fruit characters would be made into plushes they could buy
Colors were engaging → the bright palette helped make the content feel approachable, though a few kids preferred softer tones for screens with more text
Fruit market was a highlight → testers said it made the app feel “like a game,” adding excitement to what could otherwise be a serious topic
Parents were excited → several asked if the app was ready to download, and many said they felt confident knowing they didn’t have to rely solely on schools to teach their kids about puberty.
Opportunities to improve → in some cases, the period tracker felt crowded; feedback suggested simplifying the way information was displayed. Parents also wanted quick explanations for certain terms, like period, so kids could learn accurate information directly within the app instead of needing to search elsewhere.

Takeaway: Testing confirmed that the new identity made Puberry fun and approachable for kids, while giving parents confidence that it could support conversations about puberty at home. It also surfaced clear areas for refinement, simplifying the period tracker layout and adding definitions for key terms, so kids could learn and manage everything in one place.

Key learnings

Helping Puberry move from wireframes to high fidelity was only the first step, but it laid the foundation for a product that can empower kids and reassure parents for years to come. Once the designs came to life, we gained clarity not only on the look and feel, but also on how kids and parents experienced the product in practice.

What surprised me most was how much strategy it took to design something that felt playful while still being safe and clear. Designing for users really meant understanding not just what they wanted but also what they needed. Kids wanted Puberry to feel playful, but they also needed it to feel safe and clear in order to truly enjoy the experience.

If I had more time on this project, I would have loved to go deeper into the main flows and explore the gamified learning elements. While we focused on building the foundation through visual identity, I left wanting to see how those same design principles could shape the core learning experiences where kids would spend most of their time.