When they approached STRV, they weren’t looking to reinvent their product. Language Together wanted to take what already worked — their books, their method, their characters — and make it digital. Specifically, they wanted it to feel natural on tablets in classrooms and just as intuitive on mobile.
Sounds simple, but turning static storybooks into a dynamic digital experience definitely came with its own layers of complexity.
Preserving the Magic of Print
The heart of Language Together is its illustrations. Originally hand-drawn, then scanned for print, these visuals were never intended to live on screen — let alone “come to life.” But animation was a key part of the plan. We needed to bring the experience to life without breaking what made it special.
Our first step was redrawing every single image — over 100 in total — in digital form. That alone took half a year and an external illustrator. The goal was a 1:1 match, but once we saw the illustrations in context, it was clear some optimization was needed. Different screens, different formats, different expectations. Small visual tweaks followed, but the core remained instantly recognizable.
Animating What Was Never Meant to Move
Next came the animations. We had five main characters — a girl, boy, dog, cat and mouse — and 100 animations to build, ranging from bouncing balls to expressive character movements.
Here’s where things got tricky: These weren’t illustrations made for animation. No simplified shapes. No skeletal structure. Unlike apps like Duolingo (where the OG characters were designed with motion in mind) Language Together’s visuals were built for print, not pixels. Every movement had to be carefully crafted to feel natural and believable enough for children, without overcomplicating the visuals.
That balance took time. And creativity. Animations had to match the original art style, which was never intended for this kind of transformation. It’s a bit like retrofitting a flipbook to run on Pixar logic. But with a clear direction and a few smart workarounds, we made it work.
Why Rive Made Sense
For the animations, we chose Rive — a tool we’d used on several projects before, and one we’d seen gaining serious momentum across the industry. Duolingo had recently adopted it for all in-app animations, and we knew it could handle the kind of interactivity this project needed.
This was our first time using Rive at this scale… both in animation count and complexity. But it turned out to be the right call. The workflow was smooth, the quality sharp, and most importantly, it gave us interactivity that other tools (like Lottie, MP4 or GIFs) didn’t offer at the time. Even our developers appreciated the decision. Rive’s runtime libraries were easy to implement and played nicely with the rest of the stack.
The only catch? Rive’s full renderer wasn’t yet supported on Flutter when we shipped. That meant we couldn’t tap into its full power and had to navigate a small performance tradeoff. A few weeks after launch, Rive rolled out Flutter support — perfect timing for future phases of the project.
Designing Around What Matters Most
Language Together’s learning method relies on spot color — a deliberate use of specific hues to connect words with images. It’s not just a stylistic choice; it’s core to how kids absorb vocabulary. That meant our role wasn’t to add polish or playful UI elements. It was to get out of the way.
We stripped everything down. No competing colors. No visual noise. The interface became intentionally minimal — beige, literally — so the learning method could do what it does best.
Letting AI Handle the Tedious Stuff
On the backend, we used AI to simplify another tricky piece of the puzzle: audio. Every word in the app comes with audio from native speakers, but syncing those to the visuals meant cutting and timestamping dozens of MP3s. AI handled that with precision, letting us focus on experience, not grunt work.
Built to Scale, Designed to Teach
Language Together didn’t need a redesign. It needed a new stage. One where its method, its characters, and its quiet effectiveness could shine — not louder, just digitally. What we built isn’t a reinvention. It’s a continuation, now ready for the hands and screens of a new generation.
