CHILDFUND SWIPESAFE
Creating a world of colour to help young people stay safe in the age of the internet in your pocket.
đź“Ť SOLOMON ISLANDS
PROECT: EDUCATIONAL GAME
Taking Childfund Australia’s after-school programme that teaches children in developing nations online and remote to story-based game played on your phone. In true S1T2 fashion we took learning to new levels through narrative and interaction.
ART DIRECTOR
Leading the visual direction of the project, defining the colour system and visual language across the experience.
My digital art direction stand through to UI, UX, Story telling and interaction design.
READ THE S1T2 CASE STUDY
This case study is written from my perspective focussing on design, its process, craft and outcomes. S1T2 has a full case study about the wider project from content to technology which you can read here. For Francisco’s design process stay right here.
S1T2 CASE STUDY An international project for an international problem
Picture this: it’s 2020, the world is in lockdown, and young people are growing up online by default, carrying the internet in their pocket. ChildFund Australia was already working across the Pacific to help young people navigate online life, and needed a way to take that thinking beyond classrooms and into more remote regions, including the Solomon Islands. S1T2 was brought in to translate this work into a story-first digital experience designed for low-tech phones.
A story 1st approach to teaching
Working within S1T2’s Story First, Technology Second philosophy, the experience was built around narrative and character rather than instruction. Inspired by games and film, learning unfolds through the story of Sam, an AI companion you interact with as you grow through the experience.
A lifetime of colour research
Personally, this was such a great opportunity for me to use my lifelong passion and understanding of colour in a digital product that would go out into the world. Without relying on heavy video or imagery, and without defaulting to a single brand colour, the story was told through a shifting world of colour that young people navigate as they move through the internet. Finally dipping into me Colour Pinterest board I’ve built over more than ten years, with over 1,800 pins collecting how artists, illustrators, and typographers use colour together, forming my intuitive bank for colour decisions.
Exploring life's gradients in real life
It just so happened that around the same time, during lockdown, I was experimenting with large-format paper and spray paint. Using the natural, radial spread of spray paint, I explored how colours blend into each other in unexpected ways, forming soft gradients through physical process rather than precision. Those experiments are a real-world reference for how colour could flow, shift, and carry meaning in the digital experience.
Turning colours that tell a story into a system
his is where the technology-second part of the process comes into play. With the freedom to think story-first, my idea of using colour gradients (drawn from physical prints, books, and years of reference collecting) needed to become something that could live as a system.
The S1T2 team translated the whimsical and complexed flow of colour but with hella radial blurs in Figma into something coded, scalable and repeatable.
Welcome to a world of colour
Welcome to a world of colour. A living, fluid landscape that moves with your phone and responds to touch. You are guided through the experience by your AI companion, Sam, interacting with the world through the UI of your phone. The characters in the story are friends from your life, and you play through the experience by moving through messages on your phone.
Meet SAM your AI companion from the future
Meet SAM, your AI companion from the future, taking you from the black abyss into a world of colour, helping you navigate the internet, communicating emotion, caution and celebration through colour, shapes and head-spinning emojis.
Meet your friends.
Learn through their stories
The game lives inside the UI of your phone’s messaging inbox, where you talk with friends facing different life situations online. You learn by playing through their experiences and choices. As you move between friends, the background colour changes, reflecting the world you’ve stepped into.
A narrative text-based game
A text based game with no illustration or sound could have felt dry, and that was the last thing we wanted. We wanted young people to feel excitement, emotion, and tension. Living, colourful backgrounds, glass UI, and depth of field gave the space depth, while tactile, punchy animations turned simple messages into something you feel.
Learn through play
At S1T2 we live and breathe interactive storytelling, with a studio full of game designers and artists. We chose to test understanding through play rather than instruction. Swipe cards, quizzes, and familiar social media style interfaces let young people learn by doing, making decisions, and seeing the outcomes play out.
Speaking to future generations
As art director, the challenge was guiding young people through a curriculum while still creating moments of magic. Inspired by TikTok and Instagram stories, we designed celebration moments that break the grid, tilt at angles, and burst with bold copy, dynamic 3D emojis, and dramatic colour shifts. These moments express emotion through colour and movement, creating a living, breathing language of celebration, anger, and confusion that speaks directly to Gen Z culture.
Sign up today!
SwipeSafe by ChildFund is now a live programme, running in the Solomon Islands, Vietnam, and being commissioned across the Pacific. We created a launch microsite to introduce the app and handle registrations, designed with the same animated gradient language as the game. Have a look, explore the project, and try SwipeSafe for yourself.