Branding and app design for the nonprofit organization, Random Acts.
The concept is the Butterfly Effect: Where one small, nearly effortless, seemingly insignificant action has far-reaching effects.
Random Acts aims to take over the world, one random act of kindness at a time. The organization has a distinctly mischievous attitude, separating them from “sweeter” groups. They are assertive about positivity and serious about kindness, while having a sense of humor. I chose to represent them with the image of a swarm of butterflies; it’s both beautiful and forceful, benevolent and powerful. It gives the sense that each individual part is what makes up the whole. By visualizing the influence kindness can have, it gives their mission a sense of real power, fostering passion and activism.
The app is meant to engage the user in the community, the app encourages users to carry out acts of kindness every day. The Act page gives suggestions of acts of kindness for the user to carry out in their day-to-day life. The Inspire page gets them excited and encouraged. The Connect page allows users to network with people in their area and participate in larger-scale collaborative acts of kindness.
The Act page is customized to the user, generating ideas for simple acts of kindness to commit every day. Based on their location, it can generate a number of suggestions based on the weather, time of day, and local issues or news events. It also bases suggestions on chosen categories that matter to the user, such as the elderly, hospitals, military, or education. Other factors can be used to customize suggestions, such as where and when the user is at work or school, how much money they are willing to spend, their physical ability, their special skills, or even the activity level of the acts suggested.
Acts can be pinned, commented on, or removed from the user’s suggestions. Each act displays a counter for how many times it’s been pinned and how many times it’s been done. Users can also randomize app suggestions. submit their own act ideas, and document an act that they’ve done by submitting photos or video.
Inspiring news, quotes, and people are updated daily to keep users encouraged and excited to commit acts of kindness.
On the Connect page, Here, users can view recent acts by others in the community, as well as view and organize events in their area. Helping users organize and meet in person helps them get involved and see the scale of their efforts firsthand.
When idle, butterflies will gather on the screen and land on the app windows. Touching or shaking the device causes them to disperse.
To maintain a strong connection to users outside of the app, Random Acts will establish themselves on various social media platforms. There they can post images, videos, and stories of acts of kindness, and encourage users to submit their own.
Instead of gifts or rewards, being active in the community earns freebies which are to be used as acts of kindness. To start, they include paper butterflies or candies to be given away, such as being distributed on the street to strangers, or to patients at a hospital. Users can receive seed bombs, which can be distributed or used around the community. For more activity, larger freebies include gift bags for storing giveaway items like baked goods, toys, or clothes. They can receive pre-made care packages for the homeless or for soldiers posted overseas. The largest freebie would be a monetary donation from Random Acts towards a charity of their choice.
