Expresso Minds
(Context)
Expresso Minds reimagines emotional support for students by making connection feel natural again.
(Recognition)
Shortlisted in Creative Conscience Awards for socially responsible design.
(Deliverables)
Campaign concept
Visual identity
App concept
Illustration system,
AR filters
Printed artefacts
Student-led video scenarios
Expresso Minds is a mental health campaign targeted at university students, responding to loneliness, pressure, and social disconnection that often surface during academic life.
Set around casual café meetups, the campaign uses coffee culture as an emotional bridge, creating spaces that feel familiar, safe, and human.
The app uses casual, conversation-led flows that mirror how students already communicate, lowering the emotional barrier to checking in or reaching out.
Visual decisions were guided by emotional UX principles, using illustration, soft pacing, and familiar language to create warmth and approachability.
The Expresso Minds cloud mascot draws from the idea of steam, rising, shifting, and releasing, mirroring how emotional expression can feel light, natural, and human.
Clinical cues were deliberately avoided, positioning emotional support as something students can opt into through everyday interaction, rather than something they are told to do.
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Campaign touchpoints were placed within student environments, including university routes, campus spaces, and cafés, meeting students where emotional check-ins already fit into daily routines.
Coffee became the central connector because it functions as a familiar social ritual in student life, offering a low-pressure way to meet, talk, or sit with someone new through the app.
Interactive formats such as bingo cards, AR filters, and a student-led video scenario mirrored real student behaviour, using play and peer representation to reduce stigma and normalise emotional check-ins.