Koi
Koi was my project for one of my final Design and Visual Communications classes. We were challenged with creating a startup company idea and brand around the theme “healthy cities.” My initial research was focused on stress and anxiety, later narrowing down to these issues in young adults. This then led me to the topic of wellness, meditation, and mindfulness and the many benefits this has with managing stress and anxiety. My project then started developing around this idea of a tool to help young adults take a break and practice mindfulness and from this, the Koi app was formed.
Mission
Koi provides easy tools to inspire reflective relaxation to sustain living in this busy world.
Vision
To create your personal pond to rest and relax
Team Members
Amelia Coffaro, Yoga Therapist
Richard DeJong, Designer
Amanda Niebauer, Writer
What is Koi?
The app has daily mindfulness and meditation prompts to help you take a break and relax through a busy day, focusing on the idea of “reflective relaxation”. I did my own research, interviewed my target market, and interviewed professionals in that field to guide my ideas and intent with this project. From this, I decided on including a daily prompt, a progress calendar for users to track how they are doing, sponsored wellness products to help them on their mindfulness journey, and a personalized koi pond where users can watch animated koi swim around, and can add to their pond the more they complete their prompts.
For the brand, I chose the Koi since it has many meanings including overcoming obstacles and transformation. I focused on thin, delicate flowing lines to create a calm flow throughout the brand to emphasize the intent as well. The final product is mockups of this app with all the branding, an animated ad I created using stop motion animation, a infographic about wellness and meditation, and then the brand guidelines and target personas. This project took an entire semester to complete, and gave me experience in many different areas of design and creating a whole brand from start to finish!
The Process
