DesignStudio launches rebrand of Springster, an app to inspire the next generation of girls

DesignStudio has worked with Girl Effect on the rebrand of its mobile platform Springster, formally known as Girl Effect Mobile. Girl Effect is a not-for-profit organisation that empowers girls and reframes how families and communities view and value them.

Springster is a platform aimed at building vulnerable girls’ confidence and skills online to help them fulfil their potential offline. The app is filled with stories written by girls themselves on topics such as how to start hard conversations with their parents or how to save money. It also features the Springster dashboard, which captures a range of data including girls’ attitudes, knowledge and behaviour as they interact with the platform.

To celebrate the power and diversity of the Springster community, DesignStudio developed a colourful, energetic visual identity. As Springster operates across 66 countries, it utilised “the one borderless language people can all relate to – emojis,” in order to appeal to girls all over the world. This included a set of unique emojis for Springster as well as the Springster Hey – “a universal, welcoming gesture and a powerful symbol to unite girls everywhere.” Amelia from DesignStudio explained to us how the studio “wanted it to be as cool and as fun as Snapchat or Instagram, so the girls would enjoy learning from it. The energy of the brand is important – everything needed to move.”

An important part of the design process was meeting with the girls who actually use the app. DesignStudio split into four groups and conducted workshops and research in four Girl Effect territories as a means to better understand its aspirations and everyday realities. They also spoke to local experts in each country to gain a deeper understanding of the culture, tensions and opportunities within each region. When asked about her experience of meeting girls from around the world, Hayley from DesignStudio told us, “this process wouldn’t have been successful if we hadn’t spent time with them. Having statistics or facts about them would have been incomparable to meeting them and connecting with them on a personal level.”