Tactile
Hands-on
Math-U-See teaches with manipulatives. The product carries that physicality forward in plain language and step-by-step pacing.

A homeschool publisher behind Math-U-See, extending into schools, charters, and a Digital Toolbox dashboard. We delivered the design system, the four-persona research, the megasite IA, and the dashboard UX. The build paused before launch. The system itself is the deliverable.
See yourself in this work
If you publish a trusted curriculum and your roadmap now includes software, this is what building the system before the launch looks like.
Setup · 2023 → 2024
Math-U-See had spent two decades earning a homeschool following that felt like a small business. The new product surfaces had to keep that warmth and meet a school administrator on the same page.

Parents teaching their own kids at home. They came for blocks and a step-by-step sequence and stayed because the curriculum respected how children actually learn. The product had to feel like a teacher who shows up, not software that watches.

Charters, districts, and admins evaluating curriculum at the institutional level. They needed SSO, FERPA-aligned reporting, and a procurement story that fit a K-8 math sequence. Anything that read as homeschool-only died in the eval cycle.
The same product, told two ways, on one IA. That was the brief in a sentence.
The information architecture (v4.5) carries the homeschool side, the schools side, the brand-as-portfolio shelf, and the Digital Toolbox login bridge on a single tree. Subjects holds the curriculum lines: Math-U-See, Spelling-U-See, WriteShop, Grammar. Shop holds the commerce path. The Toolbox bridge appears in every navigation state, so a signed-in family and an evaluating administrator both reach their surface from the same header.
The decision was to route both markets through one structure instead of splitting the site. Everything below is that decision rendered: the delivered navigation sheet, then the same header and home rebuilt live against the tokens.
The delivered navigation-redesign sheet: mobile header states, the expanded drawer, and every section opened in turn — Community, Subjects, Shop, About. Less friction to the correct content, one Digital Toolbox login bridge in every state.

The megasite home composed against the system. Hero, the brand-as-portfolio shelf (Math-U-See plus four sibling lines), the homeschool / schools split, and the K through 8 sequence. Every color, type face, and radius reads from the Demme tokens.

Our award-winning, comprehensive learning tools support educators, parents, and students in schools and homeschools.
Free access to the first three lessons of each level of the Math-U-See Curriculum, virtual manipulatives, and more!
Instant access to lessons, digital manipulatives, instructional videos and more.
The Definitive Homeschool Convention Guide
Math in Soccer: Analyzing Angles, Trajectories, and Goals
Preparing Visual Thinkers for the Workplace
Children thrive when learning alongside engaged parents, teachers, and family members—whether leading or supporting their education. Together, we foster lifelong learners.
Innovative learning solutions for homeschoolers, parents, and small groups since 1990.
Learn About UsThe final comps from the delivery set. The full homepage scrolls inside its frame — forest hero, brand-as-portfolio shelf, the dark Digital Toolbox band, community, shop, and the Engage / Educate / Empower close. Alongside it, the mega-menu header, the desktop footer, and the mobile composition.




The delivered header rebuilt against the tokens: the marketing state with the Subjects mega-menu, and the authenticated state that carries the Digital Toolbox chrome. Same component, two contexts.
From the brand book · Audience
The persona research shaped every IA, account, and dashboard decision. The two below are the poles the system had to hold at once: a parent teaching at the kitchen table and an administrator running a procurement cycle. The full four-persona base, including the co-op leader and the student, lives in the brand book.
Parent and daily teacher
A parent at home running curriculum across one or two grade levels. Found Math-U-See because it is tactile, sequential, and works for kids who froze on traditional math. Wants the digital toolbox to support that rhythm, not replace it.
School, charter, or district decision-maker
Evaluates curriculum at the institutional level. Needs SSO, FERPA-aligned data handling, classroom-shaped reporting, and a path to roll Math-U-See into existing K-8 math sequencing without a full vendor procurement cycle.

Design the system, not the skin.
Engagement principle · 2023
Design System
Demme is a curriculum publisher first, a software company second. The system had to hold both surfaces. We built four named brand colors (blue, demme-green, demme-orange, violet) and a DaisyUI-style semantic layer (primary, secondary, accent, neutral, status, with focus + content pairs), so product UI could lean on tokens while marketing could lean on the brand bucket directly.
Color Palette
blue-200 — lighter
blue-300 — light
blue-400 — bright
blue-500 — primary default
blue-800 — primary focus / dark
demme-green-200 — light
demme-green-400 — secondary default
demme-green-700 — secondary focus / dark
demme-green-800 — deepest
demme-orange-100 — lightest
demme-orange-200
demme-orange-300
demme-orange-400
demme-orange-500
demme-orange-600 — accent default
demme-orange-700
demme-orange-800 — accent focus / dark
demme-orange-900 — deepest
violet-300 — light
violet-500 — default
violet-900 — dark
gray-50 — lightest surface, neutral-content
gray-100 — base-100
gray-200 — base-200
gray-300 — base-300
gray-700 — neutral-focus
gray-800 — neutral / base-content
near-black — content / dark-9
cyan-500 — info
cyan-900
green-400 — success
green-900
yellow-500 — warning
yellow-900
red-400 — danger
red-900
white
black
Contrast Pairings
How the palette colors perform together — text on surface combinations ranked by contrast ratio.
Aa
white
Aa
black
Aa
gray-50 — lightest surface, neutral-content
Aa
black
Aa
gray-100 — base-100
Aa
black
Aa
near-black — content / dark-9
Aa
white
Aa
demme-orange-100 — lightest
Aa
black
Aa
gray-50 — lightest surface, neutral-content
Aa
near-black — content / dark-9
Type System
Inter
Inter — primary face for UI, body, and headings
Bree Serif
Bree Serif — display alt for editorial-feel headings
Foundation
The brand’s first principles — what it believes before it speaks.
Descriptor
Homeschool curriculum publisher. Math-U-See. Spelling You See. Building Faith Families.
Founding Belief
Math is learned in sequence. Skip a step and the next one wobbles. The product respects that order.
Demme Learning helps families and schools teach math, language arts, and science with curriculum that meets students where they are. The Digital Toolbox extends those products into a connected portal for parents, instructors, and students.
Values
The operating system. What the brand commits to, every time.
Math is learned in sequence. Skip a step and the next one wobbles. The product respects that order.
Parents are the experts on their kids. The system supports that authority instead of overruling it.
A family that started Math-U-See in second grade should still feel at home in eighth. The brand has to carry across the arc.
A school administrator should land on the same brand and feel met, not redirected.
Character (Brand Personality)
Five traits that turn values into behavior.
Hands-on
Math-U-See teaches with manipulatives. The product carries that physicality forward in plain language and step-by-step pacing.
Familial
Twenty years of homeschool trust did not come from corporate polish. The voice still reads like a teacher who knows your kid by name.
Patient
No leapfrogging. Every screen earns the next screen. The IA reflects that pacing.
Inclusive
Homeschoolers and admins reach the same shelf. The brand treats both like the actual customer they are.
Brand Pillars (Messaging)
The three things this brand always says — the messages every piece of work ladders back to.
The product promise
Math-U-See works because the lessons stack. The Digital Toolbox carries that same logic into software. Every screen is a step. Every step earns the next.
The market promise
A homeschool parent and a school administrator land on the same brand and both feel met. No marketing site for one and a procurement portal for the other. One door, two paths inside.
The voice promise
Demme is a publisher with a portal, not an LMS with a brand attached. The voice keeps that order. Tools serve the lesson. The lesson never serves the tools.
Voice
How the brand sounds out loud — the tone every word inherits.
Speak like a teacher who respects parents as the actual experts on their kids.
Math-U-See is tactile and sequential. The voice should feel the same way: concrete, step-by-step, never academic.
Honor the homeschool base while making schools feel welcome. Never code-switch into corporate.
No leapfrogging. Every sentence earns the next.
Ten Steps to a Federal Job is a sequence. Teach the sequence.
Unlock the proven framework that helps families succeed.
Math-U-See has worked for thirty years because it teaches the way children learn.
Math-U-See leverages a research-backed pedagogy to drive student outcomes.
The delivered color-system artboard: the semantic row (primary / secondary / accent / base / status), the four app buckets with their light and dark steps, and the per-context recipes for orange, green, and blue surfaces. This sheet is the source the code tokens at tokens/brands/demme were captured from.


A LearnDash-backed lesson surface for parents, instructors, and students, sharing one account architecture.
The Digital Toolbox sits at the center of the engagement. Parents, instructors, and students log into the same product surface, with role-aware navigation and a lesson-shaped content model that respects how Math-U-See families already work.
The dashboard is built around three patterns: a primary lesson workspace, a portfolio of progress signals, and a secondary nav for switching between courses, students, and accounts. Every component is mapped to a token in the system, so when the team eventually returns to the build, the surface is theme-able from a single semantic layer.
The Digital Toolbox app shell: subject rail, lesson breadcrumb, search, and account surface. Parents, instructors, and students all live inside this chrome — only the affordances change.
The account architecture made visible: home leader, community leader, administrator, and student switch lenses without switching products. This pattern is the answer to the fragmented-logins problem that started the engagement.
The Lesson 5 surface rebuilt against the system, faithful to the delivered comp: the Digital Toolbox rail with the subject tree, the orange-bordered Instructor Help card with its shaded Lesson Solutions panel, the Objectives / Why two-up with listen-along audio, and the Warm Up with See It Solved. Orange marks instructor-only affordances everywhere it appears.
When signed on as an instructor, you will see orange buttons and shaded areas visible only to you.
The orange buttons indicate items to print or Solutions.
The orange-shaded areas include Notes and other important information for instructors, including:
Polynomial long division is useful when a polynomial needs to be broken down into smaller parts. It is also used in some forms of computer programming, such as error-control coding and cyclic redundancy check (CRC) methods.
The Warm Up activates prior knowledge that is related and important to your understanding of the lesson. It is a great way to prepare your mind for what you are about to learn.
Complete the Warm Up in your Lesson Pages. If necessary, See it Solved to check your work.
The delivered Lesson 5 comp from the report set: Instructor Help with the orange-shaded solution affordances, Objectives and Why panels with listen-along audio, and the Warm Up with See It Solved. Scroll the artboard; the live rebuild above stays faithful to it.

Top-bar 0 through 5 rebuilt as live React components against the Demme tokens. Each iteration trades chrome for clarity. Top-bar 3 is the smallest amount of chrome that still holds three roles, two markets, and one brand — the working frame the team tested against.
Bar closed. Hamburger / search / Demmo wordmark / Login pill, with three quick-access pills below.
Menu reveals five top-level destinations and the Digital Toolbox login card.
Community expanded: Blog, Podcast, Events. Vertical guide ties the children to their parent.
Subjects expanded: Math-U-See, Spelling-U-See, WriteShop, Grammar. The working frame for the engagement.
Products expanded: Books, Manipulatives, Kits, Downloads. The shop side of the IA.
About Us expanded: History, Philosophy, Culture, Careers. The publisher story.
See yourself in this work
If your product roadmap is outgrowing your brand, the system is the deliverable that outlasts the launch schedule.
Before
A trusted curriculum brand with a growing software roadmap, four account types, and no design system to hold them. Every new surface asked the homeschool base and the school buyer to visit different products.
After
One brand foundation, one IA, and a token-based design system documented in Figma and mirrored as code. When the build resumes, every screen is already themed, mapped, and testable against the four personas.
Brand stage
Engagement
Vertical
Scope
Duration
Work like this
Live brand book
Tokens, voice, components, and patterns rendered from the source on disk. The same record powers this engagement, the product, and the agents on stack.