Project
Local Coastal is a collaborative project for the Adobe Creative Jam x Rip Curl competition. Our team of 3, competed against 162 teams in Australia and New Zealand to create a product that spoke to community activism on the coast. We placed 4th overall.
Rip Curl remains a company built by surfers for surfers, and they’ve been market leaders in surfing for over 50 years. They endeavour to make the best products, run the best events, support the best athletes, deliver the best customer service, communicate the best brand message and have the best crew of people. This helps Rip Curl hold a vision of being regarded as The Ultimate Surfing Company.
01
Challenge
Develop a third-party mobile app that encourages local coastal communities to take-action and help preserve their coastal environments.
02
Goal
To create a mobile application focused on educating and engaging the greater community to volunteer in preservation efforts.
03
Outcome
Local Coastal is a mobile app that provides beach goers volunteering opportunities in their local environment.
Problem Statement
A regular beach goer who lives in a coastal town needs a way to find volunteering opportunities to help preserve their local coastal environment.
The user will want to stay up to date with preservation efforts, be educated on coastal habitats and how they can use this knowledge to continue in maintaining the coastline. It’s important for the user to small steps to shape the future of their coastline.
Research
The research for this project considered Rip Curls history, coastal preservation efforts and community activism, specifically on the Gold Coast. It was understood that the coastal community currently plays a large part in preservation through monitoring of beaches, coastal flora and fauna; protection of dunes and providing training and education activities to increase community knowledge of coastal issues. This identified and confirmed the lack of public awareness of these activities and drew upon the need to focus on the main function to provide a platform to list events and activities.
The research identified the following functions to be included:
- Provide coastal background and an overview of its ecosystem based on the users’ location
- Track progress of the community’s’ preservation and maintenance efforts and offer ways to contribute to the progress (donations/ activities/ planting vegetation/ clean up)
- Provide a list of suggested activities that match the interests of the user
Another issue found that the increased tourism is affecting both the coastline and the character of the place. Being that the “character” is the face of a place, we implemented this into the branding.
Branding
Local Coastals’ visual design mirrors a 70s-coastal vibe that ties into the heritage of the Rip Curl brand. A collage imagery aesthetic is utilised in an aim to reflect Australian coastal environments and the character of our past culture.
Outcome
The app uses the onboarding process to personalise the user’s interests, passions and character traits to preservation and maintenance activities. With location tracking, users are made aware of current, past and future projects and provide ways they can contribute or actively support the coastal environment.
The end-product provides the user a way to find volunteering opportunities and activities to help preserve local coastal environments. In addition, users engage in a personalised experience where they can track personal progress, share efforts and stay involved in community activism in their local community.
local coastal, Mobile app 2020
