01
Building a Mental Health Brand Strategy
We conducted interviews, ran surveys, analyzed search trends, performed secondary research, and had conversations with those who’ve experienced First Episode Psychosis.
Uncovering the Truth Through the Stigma
Each bit of new information chipped away at the layer of stigma surrounding psychosis to reveal its reality. Just as you shouldn’t build a house on a shaky foundation, you shouldn’t build a brand on anything other than the truth.
Who is Generation Z?
First Episode Psychosis most often occurs in young people ages 15-30. The majority of this demographic is commonly known as Gen Z. The success of this brand depended so much on its ability to resonate with this audience, so we carved out ample space in our research to get close to this unique generation. What did our brand research reveal? These were our big takeaways:
A Brand New Name for a New Beginning
The original project name was long and, as our research uncovered, carried connotations of addiction rehab. “HeadsUp” gestures to our focus on mental health, commands the audiences’ attention, and encourages a positive outlook. The new name creates the ideal foundation for this brand and its mission to soar.
02
A Bold New Aesthetic
Once we established the brand strategy and messaging, our next step was to design a new logo and visual style that would appeal to members of GenZ and their families.
A Symbol of Hope
The logo we designed for HeadsUp highlights the role of conversation and open communication in mental health. The mark has a simple, modern design that can be adapted to multiple situations without losing its conceptual integrity.
Positive Dialogue Starts Here
HeadsUp’s mission is not only to connect people with appropriate, evidence-based care, but to extinguish the stigma around mental health overall. Their impact begins and ends with a positive message: both a better life and a more understanding world are possible.
Typography & Color
Bright, bold, creative, optimistic, professional: five adjectives that underpinned our choices of fonts and colors for the HeadsUp brand.
03
Helping People Through Sound UX Strategy
HeadsUp’s mission includes connecting a variety of different audiences with different resources, education, and tools. Designing a website that works for all of these distinct groups starts with a foundational UX strategy that considers users’ goals and pain points.
Mapping out Each User’s Journey
A little empathy goes a long way when creating an effective user experience. We worked closely with HeadsUp to document each audience’s specific journey through the site, ensuring they can quickly access the content they need without unnecessary roadblocks.
The Simple Sitemap is Often the Smartest Sitemap
With so many diverse website goals, we approached the site architecture understanding that any unnecessary convolution could spell quick failure for our visitors.
04
Designing the Web Experience
The brand we built for HeadsUp became the foundation from which we designed the accompanying website. The visual direction of the new web design is fun and optimistic without obstructing HeadsUp’s mission of connecting more individuals with the resources they need on psychosis, while dismantling harmful stigmas in the process.
Making Psychosis Easy to Understand
Working closely with the HeadsUp team and our video partner, we provided creative direction and illustration assets for a short animated video aimed at helping individuals who’ve experienced psychosis and the people around them understand what it is, and why it’s important to get help early.
05
A Strategic Web Development Process
Some websites are all about flash, motion, and surprise. Others are purely functional, barebones exercises in web development. HeadsUp’s website balances the best of both worlds. We developed this site so that it felt modern without overwhelming visitors with potentially alarming animation. As such, we were able to build a new site that is accessible to all without having to sacrifice a high standard of design.
Optimism and Creativity on Display
After learning of the program participants’ incredible creativity, we built a custom artwork gallery to showcase their work on the website, becoming a testament to hope even in the midst of a difficult and confusing experience.
Achieving ADA Compliance in Style
Though a worthy thing to strive for, ADA compliance can sometimes hamstring a web design due to added visual restrictions and guidelines. Not here. By building the brand from the beginning with accessibility in mind, we were able to create a site that is both stunning and Double-A ADA compliant.
Strength in Numbers
Overall the new website has been well received by the mental health community, collaborators across the country, and program participants.
3 M
average time spent on the “For Me” page
Visitors spend over 3 minutes on the “For Me” page that is targeted towards young people experiencing psychosis first-hand.
50%
of traffic visits the website's digital resources for clinicians
The web pages and digital resources for clinicians have a very low bounce rate and represent 50% of site traffic.
3 M
average time spent on the “Find a Center” page
“Find a Center” is the 3rd most trafficked page and is performing well with average visitors spending over 3 minutes engaging with this content. People are finding the help they need!
No matter what changes we’ve been through over the years, we’ve always been able to rely on Push10 to support us and help the brand and the website evolve.
HeadsUp
Meredith Jacoby, Community Outreach Manager
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