Designing the Book Badges was a tremendous project. We have over 40+ microlearning mediations available, so creating multiple Book Badges per book resulted in over 80+ designs in total.
I wanted these badges to be something exciting for users to collect. The idea for the Book Badges came from our UI Designer: shareable quotes from our microlearning meditations, paired with coordinating illustrations.
Making Each Badge Feel Like the Book
Beyond creating a visually interesting and simple design, the badges needed to coordinate with our book covers, connect with each book’s theme, content, colors, and background colors, and work well on the page with our UI assets. It was about combining visual aesthetics with function.
The Book Badges allowed us to go beyond relying on our mascots for visual communication and create book-specific images like:
- A dragon, for the ‘Artist’s Way at Work’ by Mark Bryan. This book regularly discusses “Riding the Dragon”, comparing workplace stress and competitiveness to a dragon. Not as a monster to defeat, but as a source of energy to harness for your creative ambition.
- A strand of sparkly DNA, for ‘It Didn’t Start with You by Mark Wolynn. This book discusses how inherited family trauma can pass down through generations and show up as our own anxieties or mental health struggles, even when we did not experience the original trauma.
- A personal favorite to design was the sword and shield, based on the book ‘Daring Greatly’ by Brené Brown. This was created to represent embracing imperfection and daring greatly, showing that vulnerability is not a weakness, but a strength.
Designing for Daily Practice
I applied this design process to each Book Badge to give users a complete experience of our microlearning meditations: thoughtful design, intentional color choices, and an encouraging system that helps users practice daily as they work toward their goals.
myMentalPal is for mindfulness, learning, and daily self-improvement, not a replacement for professional mental health support. Open the app, start a microlearning challenge, and collect each Book Badge one small lesson at a time.
