“Giving him a broader range of emotions would allow the user to develop more of a relationship with him as well as allow us to show him in even more places within the app.” New animations “Duo has made a few appearances in the product and marketing materials, but we felt he had more of a story to tell in the user’s experience,” Hartman says. The previous designs (left) and the new designs (right). Prior to the redesign, Duo the owl and other illustrations had a more “hand-drawn” look about them with more irregular shapes.īut Hartman explains that as the Duolingo team has expanded and the range of products has grown since the previous redesign five years ago, it was necessary to make the imagery more “scaleable”, faster to produce and easier to animate.ĭuo, who has been drawn with two semi-circles for wings and “pill” shapes for feet, has been transformed from just a “figurehead” to a “mascot”. Some of the key design changes include using more geometric shapes and a flat perspective for imagery throughout the app, which Hartman says makes it easier to add animation and combine different images together, “regardless of who drew them”. The redesign, which has been done in-house, looks to be more “consistent” across all platforms and language courses, with thousands of illustrations updated throughout the app. “We were working with two art styles that didn’t mesh well together, which hindered our ability to use Duo, our mascot owl, in more dynamic ways.” Thousands of new illustrations
“From the outside, it wasn’t entirely obvious that Duolingo needed a redesign – but it was a different story internally,” he says.
The redesign has been centred largely around updating the app’s owl mascot, Duo, who has been given more “personality” and a wider range of expressions and movement, according to Duolingo art director, Gregory Hartman.
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