TreeCard
The world’s first wooden debit card (partnered with Ecosia) that plants trees every time you spend.
Role
App & Web Design
Platform
Web (Desktop/Mobile)
Mobile App (iOS)
Timeline
May 2021 – May 2022
Team
Candy Choi – Digital Designer
Rafay Iqbal – Creative Director
Money doesn’t grow on trees
With a brand like Treecard that has sustainability at its’ core, users love that they are able to help the environment through their spending.
Whether they make a purchase using the physical wooden debit card or online, they can see how many points they have earned towards planting their next tree.
How does one visualize their impact and to feeling like they’re making a real difference in combating climate change through reforestation?
This is where The Impact Center comes in, to help users connect and engage with their environmental impact.
Understanding the users
We first had to learn about the users we are designing for. There were two specific personas we wanted to focus on: Mike the Nature Lover and Ashley the Woke Activist.
We took into consideration how they think, what they feel, what they do, and their needs/wants towards the design of the Impact Center.
Planting the seeds
Our initial approach was to gamify the experience to encourage users to visit the app daily.
With the Tree Valley, you start with a sandy desert and as you start to grow more trees, more greenery overtakes the barren land. Next was the Tree Map, which would have an airport-style ticker, displaying (in real-time) the number of trees Treecard users have helped plant globally, above a map of the different countries where they’ve been planted.
Focusing back on making their impact feel real and tangible, we added content like Live Treecams where you can watch a live video feed of the communities working to plant the trees across the world. We also wanted to include educational information on the various plant and animal species in the different regions that are benefitting from the increase in vegetation and foliage.
Preparing to sprout
Treecard was set to announce the launch of this new feature on their website. The page would spotlight the people in the communities from various countries that works with Ecosia to plant trees (over 150,000 trees to date).
We wanted to emphasize the global impact of our eco-friendly mission, so we created a world map that was completely covered in lush greenery and wildlife as the first thing you would see when you landed on this page. We put the faces of the amazing workers upfront and center, and matched photographs to the shape of the country it was shot in.
Hot off the press (kit)
I had a hand in creating the first press kit for Treecard, with the start of my modelling career in some of the mockups (hint: it’s the ones with the plants) 👋
In full bloom 🌳
For the initial launch, we designed the referral experience for the app waitlist.
Users would sign up on the website and be put onto a queue system, where the more people they refer, the more trees they can already start help plant and the further ahead they can move up the list.
We received over 250,000 waitlist signups on the first day!
