Untranslated — Woo

Untranslated

From a static guideline to a tool the brand can keep using.

Overview

MadeA brand identity for a cross-cultural music playlist, shipped as a tool instead of a PDF.
NeedEvery new artist and post needs fresh covers, stories and banners, in a different size each time.
ValueThe team makes on-brand visuals themselves, without a designer, and they never drift off-brand.

In agencies I watched the same thing happen again and again. A brand ships a guideline PDF, the client gets busy, and a few months later nobody follows it, or nobody can.

A playlist makes this worse. Every new artist, cover, story and banner needs fresh visuals at a different size. A document can describe the rules. It can't make the next post.

So the deliverable became a tool instead of a PDF. It makes on-brand visuals the client can keep generating:

SizeSwitch formats and the layout refits.
ColorFive brand colors are built in. Shuffle picks a three-color combo, never off-palette.
AudioDrop in a track and the pattern moves with it.
TypePresets like Hide Border set an artist's name inside the system.

Anyone can keep making content. Nobody can step outside the rules, because the rules are the tool.

I led the project: the call to ship a tool instead of a guideline, the identity system, and all of the tool's code.

Lead design & creative coding: Yutong Hu
Design support: Connor Gravelle, Ann Tang

Shipped as a web tool on GitHub Pages.

The idea comes from Zygmunt Bauman's Liquid Modernity: identity as flux, not fixed structure. You don't understand the lyrics, you still feel the song. That gap is the brand.

v1 was a flat wall of controls. v2 grouped them into collapsible sections, because the tool has to work for someone who isn't me.

People asked for lyric translations. I said no. Being untranslated is the point.

Claude Code, Codex, Figma, Github

Try the tool

The first version of the tool, built with Claude Code.

This video was recorded entirely using the audio-reactive function of a custom-built tool.

Using the Hide Border preset to generate artist name.

Some people have asked if I could add translations, but unfortunately, the very essence of this playlist lies in it being untranslated, showcasing lyrics in languages other than English.

I embed 5 colors inside the tool and has a feature of randomized to make the combo of 3 colors from color palette. Redesigned the tool’s own interface between versions, collapsible sections replaced a flat wall of controls. The system has to be usable by someone who isn’t me; that’s the point of shipping a tool instead of a PDF.