MindBoba
About the Project
MindBoba is the working name for a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) funded project lead by Eugene based e-learning company, Trifoia, called Personal Relevance of Psychotherapy for Asian Americans: A mobile-based mental health problem-solving intervention to reduce stress (PRoP-AA).
MindBoba is a storytelling app which aims to de-stigmatize mental health among the Asian American population.
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Design consultation
Vector illustration
Library & Design system
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January 2023 - April 2023 (4 months)
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Collaborated with researchers, program managers, and engineers to make foundational decisions on the art style for the app.
Designed characters representing a range of age, gender, and body types within the Asian/ Asian American community.
Created a library of culturally-informed, modular vector assets that would support animated storytelling and a vast range of other applications, including print.
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Adobe Illustrator
Procreate
Art Style
Through their intensive research involving focus groups and interviewing of experts in the Asian mental health field, the MindBoba team concluded that their target demographic was women in the Asian and Asian-American community aged 25-45.
With this in mind, and with several sessions of moodboarding, sketching, and feedback involving project management, design, and key stakeholder advisors, I developed an art style with the following characteristics:
Hand-drawn
Soft
Culturally informed
Character Designs
MindBoba centers three narratives of characters representing different age groups of the Asian and Asian American community.
In partnership with the MindBoba team, I created the designs of these three characters, as well as provided vectored poses so that the characters could be used animated in a wide variety of storytelling scenarios.
Bing Bing
Age: 51
Occupation: Accountant
Mother of two teenage boys
Caretaker in every aspect of her life
Goal and achievement oriented
Bowen
Age: 38
Occupation: Restaurant Owner
Father of one young daughter
Feels anxiety and pressure to provide
Jennifer
Age: 21
Occupation: College student
Wants to pursue acting, but knows her parents won’t approve
Feels pressure to fit Asian beauty standards
Panda
Age: 8 (Approx. 25 in human years)
Occupation: Your narrator and guide!
Panda encourages you to learn about our main characters and to take action and try the stress management techniques demonstrated
Loves boba
Scene Designs
To give these characters and their stories context, I developed a series of interior and exterior scenes for the developers to use interchangeably with the character assets. Elements of each scene were also optimized for animation.
City Park
Office
Kitchen
Boba Shop
City Block
Vectored Assets & UI Design
To support with the interactive and animated aspects of the MindBoba app, I supplied the team with a library of vectored assets and interactive components that could be interchanged depending on storytelling and gameplay needs.
Character expression sets
Reward Items
Mood Meter Buttons
