Reach is a playful, community-driven bartering app created to make mutual aid easier, friendlier, and more accessible.
Born from the realities of economic instability, social isolation, and the rising costs of everyday life, Reach connects neighbors, builds resilience, and fosters genuine human connection through skill-sharing and support.
The brand uses humor and a sense of nostalgia to make mutual aid feel approachable. Whether it’s trading farm fresh eggs for a haircut by a neighbor, your old printer for a home-made lasagna, or knowledge for a kind favor—Reach is about reducing the friction around asking for help, and making trade feel human again.
This is a self-initiated conceptual project designed to explore how a bold, engaging, and community-driven platform could function in the real world. It reflects my skills in brand strategy, UX/UI, storytelling, campaign thinking, and creative direction.
MARKETING & ADVERTISING:
The Personality
Behind the App
Behind the App
When Weird Works: Designs That Start Conversations
The visual identity for Reach’s marketing campaign is intentionally strange—part public service announcement, part late-night infomercial, with a splash of Dada. It borrows from the lo-fi sincerity of '90s public access TV and the surreal logic of barter culture, where the value of things is entirely based on context and need.
Visually, it’s loud, literal, and a little off. The type is oversized, the images are awkwardly direct, and the trades feel borderline nonsensical (omeletes for office supplies?). That tension is the point. It’s meant to stop people with a mix of “what am I looking at?” and “wait… I kind of get it.”
The marketing doesn't just sell the app—it invites people into a shared joke about how wild and flexible human value systems can be. That moment of curiosity becomes the hook for something deeper: a platform where support, care, and community aren’t just possible—they’re free to be weird, warm, and mutual.
This social campaign builds on the absurd bartering logic established in the billboard ads—using Instagram carousels to turn impractical swaps into oddly persuasive how-to's. Each slide functions like a mini infomercial, combining satire, storytelling, and nostalgia to create a world where things like “Rachel’s hammer” are genuinely desirable.
The tone is intentionally offbeat, pulling from the visual language of chain emails, early internet ads, and chaotic recipe blogs. By leaning into absurd specificity—like smoothie tutorials that require a hammer—the campaign invites people to laugh and imagine a different kind of value system: one based on care, creativity, and mutual support rather than money.
It’s marketing that doesn’t just pitch a product—it invites people into the logic of the world Reach lives in: weird, generous, and deeply human.
BRAND SYSTEM:
The Identity
The visual identity for Reach borrows from the scrappy, self-made energy of 1990s public access TV, the blunt clarity of public service announcements, and the chaotic urgency of late-night infomercials.
These reference points weren’t just aesthetic choices—they were strategic. Each one represents a different kind of DIY communication: low-budget, community-oriented, and made to reach as many people as possible without gatekeeping.
Public access TV gave everyday people a platform to share information and support each other, often with little more than a green screen and a point to make. PSAs told you what you needed to know, fast. Infomercials made the absurd seem practical—and made you believe a weird little gadget might actually make your life easier. That blend of sincerity, boldness, and slightly unhinged optimism maps perfectly onto the ethos of mutual aid and bartering.
The design needed to feel legible, loud, unpolished, and useful—like a flyer stapled to a telephone pole or a 2am channel flip you accidentally believe in. Because in a world full of hyper-branded apps that feel distant or transactional, Reach needed to feel personal, practical, and maybe a little strange—in the best way.
At its core, Reach is about lowering the emotional barrier to asking for help. It’s not trying to reinvent community—it’s just trying to make it easier to access. The rotating “because” statements in the brand guidelines act as a kind of mission loop: plainspoken reminders that mutual aid doesn’t have to be revolutionary to be real. Borrowing sugar used to be normal. Support shouldn’t take weeks, forms, or fees. These aren’t slogans—they’re quiet truths that tell people: you’re not weird for needing help, and you’re not wrong for offering it. The brand’s job is to hold space for that truth, with a little humor, a little volume, and a whole lot of permission.
