MENd is a men’s mental health app designed not to look like a mental health app. This project was made for my two semester thesis course at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. Throughout my first semester, I was tasked with choosing an umbrella topic, recognizing the main problem associated with it, and then creating a hunt statement to clearly define what data I was hoping to uncover with my research. From there, I did extensive secondary and primary research, made an annotated bibliography, did a competitor analysis, and made a primary research plan. For primary research, I made a survey aimed towards men (or anyone who identifies with the concept of masculinity) and asked questions regarding mental health, personal life, and what expectations they feel men should or should not necessarily need to follow. I also emailed a handful of therapists around the Milwaukee area with two of them agreeing to answer my questions revolving around mental health and gender norms. My research made it clear that Gen Z men were the demographic that needed this service the most and that my main component had to be an app for convenience and urgency.

When research was complete, I had to design a brand identity system for my project (including an identity mark, typography system, and color palette). Over time, I began to challenge many of these ideas and embraced experimentation throughout my thesis process in order to get the most authentic solution. This resulted in me deciding to challenge the standardized typography system, choose colors that weren’t necessarily associated with mental health, and creating characters that each represented different emotions and spoke to the user using their own unique font. The Gen Z demographic resonates with authenticity, motion, interactivity, unrefined-ness, expression, and oftentimes rebellion; subsequently, I decided that in order to reach a demographic that is often avoidant to address their mental health, I needed to catch their attention first.

Following the conceptualization of the MENd app, I made a brochure (meant to be displayed in waiting rooms, schools, and doctor’s offices) to serve as a secondary component to bring awareness to the app. I also made physical stickers to promote the app that I gave out at my thesis exhibition, and a process book showcasing all of the various elements I created for this project and why I made the decisions I did. This exhibition consisted of a wall that I designed, painted, added vinyl cutouts to, and had a wooden version of the MENd logo created. In addition to this, I also made ‘Zine Packs’ that I sold at the pop-up shop associated with the thesis show. There were three different packs that each contained a zine, a sticker sheet, a poster, and code to free assets that I made myself.