Our partners at ThinkArgus—a marketing and branding agency focused on public sector and purpose-driven organizations—came to us with a prompt from the MA DPH Bureau of Substance Addiction Services: Create a radically engaging digital tool to teach 11- to 13-year-olds mindfulness practices. We had to think hard about the “digital” part; being online no doubt adds to the stress our kids experience today. But like it or not, around 95% of US teens have access to a smartphone. So we saw an opportunity to build something affirmative into young teens’ digital habits, and to sneak some beautiful art and positive reinforcement through the cracks of these dopamine factories.
After successful testing in schools and Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs, the State of MA asked us to build the experience into an app, which is now live!
Client: ThinkArgus
For: MA DPH Bureau of Substance Addiction Services (BSAS)
Funded by Massachusetts Department of Public Health
— Leads —
Creative Direction: Jeremy Sahlman, Chrissy Eckman
Technical Direction: Steve Madden (Creative), David Hindman (Dev)
Producers: Nickey Georgallas, Kate Nolan
Art Direction: Chrissy Eckman, Adabelle Tan, Yifan Sun, Celia Hsu (Intro Video)
Copywriting: Natasha O’Rourke
Music/SFX: Kate Siefker
— Experience —
Branding + UI: Yifan Sun, Rux Centea, Chrissy Eckman, Adabelle Tan
2D Design: Yifan Sun, Adabelle Tan, Kevin Chiu, Wendy Huang, Victoria Junmei
3D Design: Ivan Sokol, Wendy Huang, Yifan Sun,
2D Animation: Yifan Sun (Lead), Jake Williams
3D Animation: Lyon Graulty, Omid Seraj, Wendy Huang
Development: David Hindman (Lead), Kyler Berry, Steve Madden, Russell Bradley, Yali Izzo
Music/SFX: Kate Siefker
Audio Engineer: Billy Wirasnik
— Intro Video / Trailer —
Art Direction + Design: Celia Hsu
Animation: Pavelas Laptevas (2D), Lenar Singatullov (3D)
Music/SFX: Kate Siefker
— Early Stages —
Concept Art: Meredith Binnette, Victoria Junmei, Adabelle Tan, Yifan Sun, Wendy Huang, Kevin Chiu, Aishwarya Sadasivan
Technical Research: Meredith Binnette, Steve Madden, Chrissy Eckman
Producer: Rebecca Cummings
Edit: Noah Canavan
Produced by Black Math
Executive Team: Jeremy Sahlman (ECD), Evan Fellers (CEO), Alexandra Williams (EP, Boston), Stephanie Rabins (EP, New York)
