SEBASTIAN SCARPA

About me

Besedo homepage design promoting scalable content moderation, with pink flowing lines, a woman at a computer, and chat messages illustrating unwanted contact.

Besedo

Besedo brought me in as a design consultant to help give their brand, website, and visual language a much-needed refresh. Working closely with their CMO, I set out to rethink as much as possible during my time with the team—from simplifying components and updating the site’s look and feel, to refining colors, typography, and imagery. A lot of that work is still being developed and rolled out, but the foundation is there—and solid.

My role:

Brand design

Webdesign

Illustration

Besedo supports digital platforms of all sizes with content moderation. They help improve content quality and user experience with AI and human powered content moderation.

www.besedo.com

Brand work

Besedo already had a solid brand palette, so I focused on refining it. I adjusted a few tones—giving the pink more room to shine—and built out tints and shades to work across web, UI, and social. I also created clear, practical guidelines for color combos to keep things consistent in everyday design work.

Refined brand Colors.

Image of tints and shades of the besedo brand colors

Tints & shades.

Examples of brand color combinations

Color combos for brand colors, tints & shades,

Examples of brand colors in use

I provided example compositions as references for how to combine and apply the palette in real use.

Suisse Int'l Font example
Suisse works font example
Suisse mono font example

A new direction in type

Besedos previous typeface felt too playful. We needed something more mature, clean, and versatile. I knew I wanted to go with something rooted in Swiss design, and we landed on Suisse Int’l as the new primary typeface.
To support it, I also selected Suisse Works and Suisse Mono from the same family as complementary styles.

Typographic scales

I defined a full set of typographic rules for web use—covering headings, body text, and UI labels across all breakpoints. The type scale was carefully built to flow smoothly across different devices and screen sizes, creating a clean, readable experience from mobile to desktop.

Suisse Int'l typographic scale example

Simplifying the visual language

Besedo’s illustration and imagery needed a refresh to match the cleaner, more grown-up website. I simplified how UI elements were shown, reduced detail, and added a mono font to tie things together. A hand-drawn font brought back some personality and playfulness from the old brand. The end result: a lighter, minimal feel that fits the new direction.

Illustrated chat showing unwanted sexual messages, requests to stop, and a deleted message flagged by content moderation.
Illustrated chat showing unwanted sexual messages, requests to stop, and a deleted message flagged by content moderation.

OLD STYLE:
‍Colorful cartoony graphics & detailed UI.

Woman at a computer with overlaid chat messages showing unwanted contact and a moderation notice reading “User blocked due to violation”.
Woman at a computer with overlaid chat messages showing unwanted contact and a moderation notice reading “User blocked due to violation”.

UPDATED STYLE:
Simplified, Light & bright. Real people. More grown up look.

AI moderation example flagging a sneaker listing for missing text, a low-quality image, and invalid expressions in its description.
Three sample user posts with sexual solicitation, a shared location, and promotional links highlighted in red for content moderation.
Content moderation settings with profanity, NSFW, and self-harm filters enabled and the outbound links filter disabled.

A few examples of illustrations/imagery I did, featuring the updated visuals.

"I’ve had the pleasure of working with Sebastian numerous times over the years, and gosh darn it he is talented. What sets him aside from other designers is that he really cares about delivery – both quality and pace.
He is fast, talented, and delivers above and beyond – a triple threat."

—

Jonas Strandell, CMO, Besedo

A visual refresh for the website

Besedo wanted to move away from the old, playful and cartoony look—limiting colors, brightening things up, and aiming for a more grown-up, refined style that still had character. I worked through the site and created a set of components based on the new direction.

Annotated Besedo fraud prevention section design, pairing a headline and explanatory text with a flagged sneaker listing, with spacing measurements and layout guides.

I focused on creating easy-to-use components that could mix, match, and stack—so the team at Besedo could build new pages quickly.

Instead of chasing flashy concepts, I prioritized usability and built a flexible set of components that both designers and developers could easily work with, helping them get pages out faster.

I redesigned a set of key pages to showcase how the new components could come together—setting a visual foundation for future designs.

Overview of the Besedo website component library, with reusable layouts for testimonials, statistics, feature sections, content cards, and calls to action arranged on a design canvas.

A flexible, future-ready component library

I pulled all the components I designed into a solid Figma library—complete with styles, variables, colors and other elements. It gives Besedo a clear visual system to build from and makes it easier to stay consistent as they grow.

Smaller fixes that add up

I also took care of a bunch of smaller things—like reworking the buttons and setting rules for how to use them, picking an icon library that matched the new look, and choosing neutral utility colors for both web and marketing use.

Example icons from the new icon ibrary

New icon library

Besedo button styles: a dark filled primary button, an outlined secondary button, and a text link button, each with a right arrow.

Revamped button design

Besedo utility color palette showing light gray, off-white, dark charcoal, and white swatches in a grid.

Defined neutral tones for use along brand colors

A living document for a growing brand

I put together a Visual Guidelines doc to bring together everything we’d defined—color usage, typography, imagery, logo rules, etc. It’s a go-to reference for anyone working with the brand and gives Besedo a solid base they can keep building on as things evolve.

A fun and focused refresh that touched a lot of moving parts. I got a lot done in a short time, and the work sets up Besedo with a solid foundation to build on.

fin.

More projects

Fueled by 🧉 | Kristinehamn, Sweden