Common Sense Media

Introduction

Common Sense Media is where millions of families go to find out what their kids should watch, read and play. When they came to us, they were at a moment of expansion. With a growing family of properties serving parents, educators and kids, they were ready to become something bigger: the place that helps families understand how AI and digital media shape children’s lives.

One trusted language for every property

Growth like that is about more than designing a few new pages. Common Sense needed a design language that could carry the same trust across every audience and every property, and extra hands to help its design team build it quickly.

A shared visual language

We started with a design system for the new Youth AI Safety Institute, built so a parent reading a risk rating, a teacher exploring AI fundamentals and a visitor taking a quick quiz all feel like they’re in the same trusted place. It’s now becoming the foundation for a full redesign of Common Sense’s properties.

Connecting the pieces

Around it, we’ve designed universal navigation that ties the properties together, mini-games that help parents practise spotting what AI can fake, and plenty of smaller pieces along the way, too many to keep count.

The system debuted with the Youth AI Safety Institute, which launched on May 5, 2026 as an independent lab that crash-tests the AI products children use most.