The power of a sending a simple thank you note is the cornerstone of a new creative campaign launched by DT in the lead up to R U OK?Day, which is creating thousands of unique Origami shapes to deliver the sentiment.

Centred around the effect of those conversations initiated by the question, “R U OK?”, the Thanks For Asking campaign encourages people to write a note of thanks to those who have helped them.

After writing the note of thanks at ruok.org.au, every single note is analysed by an algorithm created by DT that develops a unique origami shape based on the placement and number of letters in the note.

DT also designed beautiful coloured patterns with inspiration from traditional origami patterns that all hold different and relevant meanings, deriving the colours from the R U OK? brand identity.

The result is thousands of unique thank you notes each with their own unique origami shape. These can be shared on social networks, via a link, or printed out and folded by hand with instructions on how to create the unique fold.

As explained by DT’s ECD, Jerker Fagerstrom: “For this year’s R U OK? campaign, we wanted to acknowledge the people who already ask that question and remind them – and others – that a caring conversation can take someone out of the darkness, into a brighter and more hopeful place.

“By creating an easy way for people to say thanks, we have empowered people to celebrate the start of something new.”

To achieve this aim, R U OK? and DT sourced authentic and heartfelt thank you notes and created a space online for everyone to write their own.

“Our aim was to do justice to each word in those notes – unique and heartfelt. For this, we found inspiration far from our shores, in a Japanese custom – the revered letter writing and folding art form of origami. Prayers and thoughts, wrapped perfectly,” Fagerstrom said.

“This was exactly what we needed. Each letter in the note defined a unique origami shape.”

Fagerstrom said the end result might look simple, but it is far from that. The algorithm that analyses every aspect of those notes plots a 3D co-ordinate creating a unique origami shape in real time using WebGL (In-browser).

The technology and use of javascript frameworks pushed front- and back- end infrastructure (AngularJS, BabylonJS, Node.js and ExpressJS) to its limits to ensure seamless integration across multiple devices, browsers and channels. The platform has been engineered to scale and is underpinned by nginx, MongoDB and integrated with CloudFlare (CDN).

“We hid the complexity of the tools functions behind the scenes, appearing as a single-page application – reconfiguring, adapting and revealing content all based on the action of the user, rather than having to continually reload pages,” Fagerstrom said.

Creative credits:

Rebecca Lewis – Campaign Director, R U OK?

Jerker Fagerstrom – Executive Creative Director

Tim Devine – Creative Director

Shiko Murai, Emma Borland, Lucy Downs, Sam Dickson & Cam Bell – Creatives

Krez Cukljek – Experience Designer

Ian Hammond – Content Lead

Chris Jerochim & Nathan Kelly – Front-end Developer

Michael Ford – Creative Technologist