Re·silent · 2023
Imagining what a truly kind brand looks like
Re·silent is a passion project, not client work. I wanted to explore what my natural design instincts look like with total creative freedom. No brief, no committee, no brand guidelines to inherit. But I also didn't want to design in a vacuum, so I built a real business concept to solve for. The premise: a mental health app that connects users with licensed therapists, backed by a social enterprise model where profits fund awareness campaigns and safe spaces.
The Tension
The thing is, total freedom is its own kind of problem. You have to build the walls before you can push against them. So I gave myself real ones. Small mental health charities struggle to grow because they operate in silos, each fighting for visibility and funding on their own. The business model I built around Re·silent was the solution: what if the app's revenue funded social campaigns instead of traditional advertising? The brand promotes the cause, the smaller movements get amplified, and the product grows through the work it does.
The Decisions [1]
The name Re·silent plays on resilience and breaking silence, two ideas at the heart of the mission. I initially considered a wordmark that would highlight that wordplay directly. But it felt too clever, too cerebral for a brand built on warmth. I went with an abstract logo icon instead, based on the crocus flower, one of the first to bloom after winter. Resilience made visual without needing to spell it out.
The Decisions [2]
The whole system needed to feel human. I chose the Geigy typeface, a humanist sans serif inspired by pre-Helvetica era hand-drawn pharmaceutical posters, and paired it with Agresta, an elegant italic serif. For illustration and animation, I rejected vectors entirely and went hand-drawn. The colour palette follows golden-hour warmth instead of the cool, clinical tones. Every choice pointed the same way: towards craft, slowness, and the human hand. Away from anything that felt synthetic.
The Work [1]
The logo abstracts the crocus into a gentle, smooth shape set within a soft squircle. Simple enough to work as a symbol, rooted in a meaning that carries the brand without explanation. For me, this is where the project clicks. The beauty of the mark comes from the concept behind it, not the other way around. One of those rare moments where the thinking and the aesthetics arrive at the same place.
The Work [2]
The social animations were drawn frame by frame, at 12 frames a second — a rate that gave old hand-drawn work its unique pacing. Each one captures a quiet moment of vulnerability, the kind of scene that's hard to talk about but easy to recognise. They are slow to make in a space where everything moves fast, and that's the point. The campaigns blend honesty and light humour to start conversations about mental health without lecturing.
The Landing
Re·silent lives in my portfolio as a north star. It's the clearest expression of what my natural style looks like when nothing is pulling it in another direction. The project led directly to illustration commissions that let me develop that hand-drawn style further. More importantly, it set a benchmark. Many of the clients I've had the pleasure of working with since feel like they could have come from this concept, even when the visual approach we built for them is completely different. The thinking is the through line.
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2023 · Restimo
Crafting a brand as integrated as Restimo's product