Extra Life

Campaign Vision & Scope

The "Extra Life" project originated as a Social Awareness Campaign to highlight a significant social issue by creating an impactful visual and digital experience. It stems from the understanding that communication designers play a crucial role in raising public awareness, prompting debate, and helping to solve social problems. The campaign focuses on creative repurposing of unwanted items, aiming to make people aware of the benefits of recycling and offering creative solutions for items that would otherwise end up in landfills. Millions of items are discarded annually that could be reused, and this project seeks to encourage people to give these items an "extra life."

Redefining Recycling & User Engagement

The core challenge was to shift public perception from mere "recycling" to "repurposing" as a more creative and interactive form of waste management. This involved developing an engaging way to provide people with creative ideas for their unwanted items, making the user interact more directly with the item.

Ideation & Focus on Repurposing

The initial brainstorming explored broad themes like recycling and reducing energy consumption. The project quickly gravitated towards the "Repurpose" field, finding it the most creative aspect of waste management. The concept evolved into an app designed to provide creative ideas for repurposing unwanted household items, emphasizing interactivity, teaching how-to tips, and showcasing examples. The phrase "Repurpose is the most creative" became a guiding principle.

Target Audience

The campaign targets adults from 30 to 60 years old, who are typically financially stable with significant purchasing power, interested in travel, leisure, home improvement, and quality products. They primarily use computers for navigation and prefer newsletters, news articles, and digital newspapers for information.

Early Sketches & Ideation

The initial name for the project was "2nd Life", which had a logo with a crafty look and a sky-themed blue color palette. After market research revealed similar ideas (some being virtual reality or tech refurbishment), the name was changed to "Extra Life" to maintain uniqueness while keeping the core idea.

Color Palette & Slogan

The final color palette for the entire campaign is organic and contrasting:

Greens (Main Colors): #7CB929 (medium green) and #182C19 (dark green), chosen for their organic look suitable for a sustainability campaign.

Light Orange (Accent Color): #F8B132, used to add vibrant contrast with the greens.

White and Light Grey: #FFFFFF and #E2E2E2, used for text and primarily for app backgrounds.

The campaign's slogan is: "Add an extra life to your unwanted items."

Logo & Typography

The logo's appearance was adjusted to be more refined and adult-oriented, aligning with the target audience. The logo incorporates a "+1" symbol, where + acts as a "T" and 1 acts as an "I" in "Ex+ra L1fe", reinforcing the campaign's message. The final imagotype for Extra Life involves an abstract interpretation of a hummingbird, symbolizing renewal, vitality, harmony, and balance.

Century Gothic was used across campaign elements due to its high legibility and geometric simplicity in bold, regular, and light weights, paired with Ultra Regular for poster titles and subtitles.

App Mockup Design & User Flow

The Extra Life app is designed to be simple and effortless to use, with no logins, registrations, or waiting times to get users quickly to the content. The main page features the logo, a brief explanatory text, and three main links: "Categories," "Our Mission," and "Why is Recycling Important?". The app's design language emphasizes consistency across pages, with clear button aesthetics and an intuitive menu for easy navigation.

Categories Page: Features 6 categories (kitchen, living room, bedroom, office, garden), each linking to a page showcasing refurbished item ideas. Users can also send their projects to be published in the app's project gallery.

Our Mission Page: Explains the mission of recycling and repurposing benefits. Includes a "Donate" button linking to partner charities for users unable to repurpose items themselves.

Project Page: Shows user-shared projects with pictures, names, comments, and a rating system. Users can upload their profile and project pictures, name, country, and comments.

Billboard & Merchandising

The visual billboard advert was designed to be eye-catching and colorful, using dynamic lighting. The message, "We want you to add +1. An extra life to your unwanted items," encourages repurposing in a vibrant way.

The campaign also includes merchandising items (hoodie, tote bag, coffee mug, bucket hat) designed with the campaign's logo and color palette. These items raise funds for partner charities (25% to each of the four charities) and feature size and color options with interactive hover states.

This project aims to encourage a behavioral shift towards creative repurposing of unwanted items, fostering sustainability and community engagement. From a strategic redesign of the logo to the development of an intuitive app and impactful campaign materials across physical and digital touchpoints, the project emphasizes a clear message: "Add an extra life to your unwanted items." The design is tailored to its adult target audience, balancing functionality with a strong visual identity, and is poised to make a tangible difference by raising awareness and providing practical solutions for environmental contribution.