SWELL
A wellness app that makes ocean stewardship feel like a personal practice—not a public service announcement.
The Origin
“How do you reimagine humanity's view of the ocean, so that more people start believing in its fundamental importance to life on Earth and are inspired to act accordingly?”
The Action
The deep dive into research
We ran a global pulse check survey with 136 participants across 21 countries and dove into cultural narratives, market research, behaviour change models, and psychological frameworks.
Key discovery?
Gen Z is our change engine
1/5
Digital natives craving personalisation and play
Water soothes. Science says so.
Blue Mind is a neurological theory that studies the calm we feel around water. It describes a restorative state linked to clarity, reflection, and emotional ease. Its counterpart, Red Mind, captures the stress, anxiety, and sensory overload of a world that rarely slows down.
Individual wellbeing and planetary health are a two-way street.
Hope, but make it active. This theory reframes hope as something you do, not just feel—by taking intentional steps toward healing, purpose, and collective care. It’s not about blind optimism; it’s about showing up. At its core, it recognises that personal wellbeing and planetary health are deeply interconnected—and that acting for one strengthens the other.
Habit-building, but smarter.
Blue Mind and Active Hope lay the emotional groundwork. We take that and plug it into behaviour change frameworks—COM-B and Unilever’s Levers of Change—to turn reflection into action: building habits that feel good, do good, and keep you coming back for more.
The Shift
From doomscrolling guilt-tripping
To personalised, habit-forming experiences that quietly embed ecological care into daily life
The Execution
Swell, a wellness app piloted in London.
Londoners live near water but rarely connect with it—Swell bridges the gap. Grounded in science and designed for dopamine, the app delivers daily mood check-ins, customised content, cheeky nudges, and community connection—all wrapped in a gamified package featuring avatars that grow with you and rewards that keep you coming back.
Interact with the prototype here.
The app visualises Blue Mind and Red Mind as two emotional states—and adds an optional third, purple mind, to help users track where their headspace sits in between.
Designed using Jungian archetypes, our avatars deepen your ocean-bond—turning abstract emotional connections into relatable companions.
Inspired by Dubovsky’s serene landscapes—glass morphism, soft animations, intuitive flows, and colours that whisper "ocean calm".
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