Duolingo option to serve and translate divorce papers

Duolingo’s branding is unhinged. They treat their app like a game (which works really, really well), and their social media game is strong. Their bird Duo gets up to a lot of shenanigans on TikTok.

It was a delight to receive an email from them asking if we could partner on some unhinged design concepts.

Please note, this is the first time I’ve done a sponsored post on my timeline. I have had offers to promote other brands and products, but Duolingo was the first one that felt like it would be a great opportunity and a good fit based on my work.

The ask was to generate a few different unhinged concepts for their social media accounts. For one of these concepts, I wanted to push the extremes of the emotional state of the bird. What if the bird was heartbroken? What would lead him to feel this way?

This led me to an option to serve and translate divorce papers within Duolingo. Duo (the bird) is quite empathetic so he’s heartbroken you have to go through this learning experience. He’s in tears as you translate words like “sole custody” into English.

I haven’t made a concept that’s made me audibly laugh in a while. This one did.

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