SAY YES TO LESS

Date: 2022
Target Audience: Parents & Kids
Tools: Qualtrics, Figma, Squarespace, Meta Spark Studio, Procreate, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere Pro
Role: Brand Campaign, Website Design, UI/UX, Illustration, AR

Say Yes To Less campaign started with a question: “While birthday parties give joyful moments that will last forever in kid’s and parents’ memories, where will all that waste from the celebration go?” Thinking of all the waste ending up in landfills, incinerators and oceans that accelerates the climate crisis, I realized how birthday parties can be stressful for parents, their wallets and the planet. Say Yes To Less is a nonprofit campaign committed to cutting down on unnecessary waste by encouraging parents to learn sustainable alternatives for their kid’s birthday parties. The goal of this campaign is to encourage parents to learn every small act to help the environment counts and to make mindful decisions based on environmental impact for a more sustainable and brighter future so that kids can recognize their own role in keeping Earth beautiful. By redefining birthday parties, Say Yes To Less embraces the idea that sustainable birthday celebrations can change a world often focused on "more” by making celebrations more meaningful for kids, parents and the Earth!

View Live Website ︎︎︎

Challenge of the project

In general, most of the sustainable alternative resources are in articles within publications or a post from personal blogs or they can get visual ideas from Pinterest. To find the needed information, people would need to type specific keywords in the internet search bar and browse different platforms on their end. I found finding the needed resources would be challenging for parents who care about sustainability. Much of the information regarding sustainable alternatives traditionally is text-heavy with few visuals.

Why birthday theme?

The primary audience for the Say Yes to Less campaign is parents with kids who are interested in sustainable living. There are eco-conscious parents who are passionate about sustainable living, yet it might sound difficult to other parents. Approaching the environmental issue in a more friendly way to my target audience, I went with a birthday party specifically so that many parents could relate by triggering emotional responses in them. After market research, in order to differentiate my campaign from other platforms, I created an online platform where people can find specific information at once focusing on the birthday party theme and engage together while enjoying looking at the visuals and trying out AR filters with their kids.

1. DISCOVER & RESEARCH

Qualtrics Survey

I conducted an online survey using Qualtrics to collect data about people’s awareness and attitudes around sustainability, with a particular focus on children’s birthday parties. Based on the 107 survey responses and an interview with an environmentalist, I utilized the data to create user personas for the website and understand their main needs.

User Personas

During the research process, I dived deeply into diverse segments in the U.S. on environmental issues. This journal, Diverse segments of the US public underestimate the environmental concerns of minority and low-income Americans︎︎︎, has broadened my perspective towards and cleared previous misconceptions on the racial groups of environmentalists and those interested in a sustainable lifestyle.

In this journal, the study found most Americans including both White and non-White associate the term “environmentalist” most closely with whites, highly educated and wealthy. Moreover, on average, participants including Blacks, Latinos, and Asians notably underestimated the environmental concerns of all rated demographic groups except whites and younger Americans, relative to each group’s mean level of reported concern while overestimating whites’ environmental concern, relative to whites’ mean self-report (Pearson et al., 2018).

From this journal, I learned how there is a widespread underestimation of the environmental concerns of a broad range of sociodemographic groups in America. Although my campaign project might not directly address these false beliefs about environmental concerns, it can embrace diversity and inclusion by casting families from different cultures in the promotional video or creating a section where people from diverse cultures can share their stories on a sustainable lifestyle. Furthermore, before building a wireframe for the website, I can refer to this research to consider who could be the target persona instead of assuming that only environmentalists or moms who are White and affluent will be interested in my campaign.

2. BRAINSTORM BRAND IDENTITY

Based on the discovery and research performed, I simply started brainstorming logo ideas and creating moodboards. Focusing on this campaign’s vision, mission, personality and tone of voice, I also searched for the font, color, style etc. and considered all aspects of visual language that would embody its brand strategy.

Keywords: sustainability / friendly / hopeful / positive / engaging / informative

3. CREATE BRAND IDENTITY

I intentionally picked an “Ecofont Vera Sans” known as an eco-friendly typeface. This typeface is not “full” and contains circular holes (inside the letters), offering an original idea for saving up to 30% ink per page. Since this typeface’s rationale aligns with the theme of this campaign, I wanted to promote the use of this typeface through this campaign.

Campaign Outreach Video

This campaign also includes an outreach video which serves as a significant strategy to increase engagement on digital and social channels.

Website

VIEW LIVE WEBSITE︎︎︎

On the campaign website, the “Make a Green Choice” section is where people can find sustainable alternatives for kids’ birthday parties. In this section, I initially placed three category items on three-column blocks as a card style. However, having three items in one big column was overwhelming and looked busy which could prevent users from absorbing the information. Thus, I came up with another design solution by placing each category in just one column but showing all six categories by scrolling down. In this way, users not only can find the needed resources easily but also see the attractive visuals for each category.

Augmented Reality

One of the deliverables that shaped the Say Yes To Less campaign in a more unique way is the AR filters using the Meta Spark Studio. On the official website, users can click the “Try It” buttons on a mobile device to try the effects. The use of the augmented reality medium makes the campaign brand identity stronger and triggers emotional engagement between parents and their kids. To view more AR filters, please go to the Say Yes To Less website︎︎︎.

> Challenge

One of the challenges that I particularly struggled with the most was the brainstorming and researching stage. While completing this project, I did a lot of researching and copywriting as this campaign needs to give enough helpful information to users for each birthday party supply. While completing this project, I pushed myself out of my comfort zone by pitching this project idea to more than fifteen people, especially those who don’t have design experiences and study in different fields and reaching out to interview an environmentalist who could share their story with me and understand their concerns.

> Lesson

This project aligns with my mission statement: to empower diverse communities and non-profit organizations through cross-cultural, human-centered designs for social good. Say Yes To Campaign is relevant to the environmental issue that we are currently facing and it is something that society as a whole has to work continuously on together. Contributing to the issue that we are facing and using my design skills to help to make people aware of this issue was meaningful to me.