The task
To apply for my design degree, I had to develop a project on the theme of enthusiasm. I asked the opposite question: what happens when you lose it? For people with depression or burnout, getting out of bed or meeting friends can take everything they have, and in Germany the share of adults with depressive symptoms rose from 8.3% in 2019 to 14.4% in 2024. Existing wearables and apps track a lot, but rarely respond to how someone actually feels.
Idea & approach
Kokoro, Japanese for heart, mind and soul, is a system built around Koko, an AI companion that learns a person's patterns and adapts their day to their mood, before problems become chronic. It connects three pieces: a bracelet that tracks sleep and activity and wakes you with a gentle vibration instead of an alarm, a bone-conduction headset worn like an earring, through which Koko speaks, and an app that can share insights with a therapist. The logo shows Koko as a small figure with a heart-shaped body and the bracelet floating above its head like a halo. The wearables are designed to look like jewellery, not tech.
Process
I started with a benchmark of products like Apple Watch, Oura, Nothing Ear (open) and Calm. Most of them track data, few respond with empathy, and "closing your rings" can even add pressure. Working in gastronomy, I'd also seen how hard shift workers find it to structure their days, which widened the audience. I designed the logo and the app in Illustrator, including every icon, and built the mock-ups in Photoshop. To test comfort and look, I sand-cast a prototype bracelet in silver, modelled the headset in Shapr3D, printed it on a resin printer and photographed it on my own ear.
Result & learning
Kokoro got me into my design degree. It taught me to start with people, not features: technology only helps if it adapts to how someone feels, not the other way round.
