Lasting

Art Direction, UI, Illustration

So, one day out of the blue I received a LinkedIn message from a former coworker at The Knot. He saw my illustrations and wanted to discuss a new project he had in the works. He came up with an idea for a marriage counseling app, the first of its kind. The crowd went wild (The XO Group crowd). They didn’t want him to leave to build his app, so they fully funded him with anything he needed to begin the project. He explained the premise of his marriage counseling app idea to me and how he had traveled far and wide talking to doctors and doing extensive research to create the perfect app. He had a rough idea of what he wanted it to evolve into, he created a great base for design and built a structure that really worked. User testing showed users were happy with the product, it was easy to use and customer service was quick and helpful. But it was lacking something…

This little app was in desperate need of a look and feel. It needed personality and some fun relatable light hearted illustration. 

Above: Some of the characters from round one exploration

Initially the Founder gave me direction to start work on couples that represented the themes for each session. This worked well but soon after he decided maybe we should take a new direction. So, we sat down and brainstormed to come up with the right approach. Before long I created a few variations for concepts we could run with and presented them back to the founder. He immediately was drawn to the idea of animal pairings, and this is where the real fun started! I began creating pairs to represent each theme, and the feedback from users was that they loved the new addition of the animals. Soon after this evolved into a giant google spreadsheet of every concept and animal pairing we could brainstorm. I set to work handing off in 1-2 week sprints for each section of the app.

Above: 2 other themes explored: The top shows adventure and the tools you need. The bottom shows the scientific aspect of love and relationships. 

Below: Adventure theme shown in on left – the idea being that you could potentially earn gear for each challenge completed to help you on your journey. Middle: the winning theme – animal pairs.  Right: An early stage illustration for when you’ve earned a badge. 

Above: 3 of about 30 animal pairs illustrated to represent concepts in the app (live today) 

Below: Examples of badges within a series. Exploration of texture being supplemented for animals.

Above: The latest exploration for new smaller illustrations and color palates.

Below: New Year’s resolutions and “Feeling stuck?” advertisement used for social media and e-mail. 

This project was contract role and with no in-house designer this saved the team a great deal of cost from having a full time staff member. The illustrations drew in more customers along with the already glowing reviews from customers on the overall experience. People were delighted with the product. I have been working on this brand for 2 years now. Lasting is the #1 marriage counseling app and made its debut as Apple’s Valentine’s “App of the Day” in 2019.