Duolingo x Crunchyroll Collaboration
Duolingo is looking for a new way to make their apps more appealing to younger audiences. While also looking to become more appealing, they want to increase the amount of time they keep people consistenly using the app as well.
The Problem: How can we make Duolingo more engaging to a younger audience?
Programs Used: Figma, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Illustrator, Freepik AI
The Solution: Introduce new voice coaches through a crunchyroll collaboration
Teaser Trailer
Why Crunchyroll?
Duolingo and Crunchyroll have collaborated before, giving members free trials of their premium plans. They interact with each other frequently on social media, as many of their target audience is within the same space and age group
Target Audience
16-34
Teenager - Adult
For the test run, three widely known characters were picked. Each character was restyled by me in Adobe Illustrator
The Cast
New Coaches, More Fun!
Character Construction and Teasers
Note: AI was used to animate interactions based on start and end frames I created and provided it with. Everything was created, designed, and animated by hand prior, and this is the ONLY use of AI
New Coaches, More Fun!
The whole purpose of bringing these characters in was for engaging lessons, so that was step 1. The goal was to sell the idea so this campaign could have a solid foundation going forward
*The wider screens below are variations of this one
Phase 1: The Replica
Fun Fact: For every possible combination, there would have been 725 variations! I chose sanity over realism and did three
Iconography
Reactionary App Icon Covers
Phase 2: The Makeover
When someone opens Duolingo it doesn't go straight to the lesson, theres a home screen and other enticing elements, so obviously that was the next step. Using Duolingo's design system, custom charater specific themes, screens, and iconography were made
Home Screens
Not Just Any Coach, Choose Your Favorite!
Phase 3: Advertisements
With a new character models, working lesson prototpe, and a specialized design system it was time to bring in some motion
Phase 4: The Review
What we end up with is:
A Working Prototype
A commercial
Special Character Animations