Brand story

Aspire is a gamified educational contents platform for school girls aged between 12 and 16 years, which aims to encourage interests in STEM(Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and social science. The platform would provide the users opportunities to learn about and meet female role models both online and offline through organised activities such as meet-ups and science camps.

A strong focus on mobile and tablet platforms would be key.

Why STEM and role models for girls?

I came to believe that pursuing evidences, finding patterns, and asking critical questions, a set of foundational skills in science, is a key to understand what is behind the current affairs, how a democratic society works and what my rights and duties are. These knowledge will help today’s youths to make informed and socially responsible decisions as an individual citizen tomorrow. Currently, for girls, however, there are strong barriers in perception and culture for them to be interested in science, compared to their male counterparts. Having previous worked with teenagers on a voluntary basis, I have also seen anecdotal evidences that young girls who are genuinely interested in knowledge were often considered not ‘girly’ enough and not ‘cool’ enough which made them unpopular or in worse cases, find themselves hard to integrate among peers. Many bright girls therefore are being discouraged to pursue interests in science, engineering, history and political science. Sometimes, all it takes for them to keep going is to know that there are others like themselves out there.

Product features

Discover, Play, Connect are the 3 key product features that would help Aspire tackle this problem.

Discover features help the users consume contents about female role models in STEM and social science.
Play is about the gamified elements of Aspire platform which enable the users to gain scores and compete with others.
Connect means the opportunities to join organised talks presented by female thought leaders and educational networking events with peers, such as science camps.

A DEEP-DIVE

The logo

I really wanted to create a logo based on simple, fun geometric shapes that convey curiosity, and love for science. I’ve chosen a vibrant and playful colour palette. Shapes within the logo is evocative of a shape of a girl with flags - a sense of destination and entrepreneurship.

Elements for a design system

I’ve created key icons and graphic elements in the same Aspire look, as a basis for a design system. The simple geometric shapes and the colour palette do seem to work really well together.