OffMode launches new brand identity via Young Folks as Australians look to log off
Young Folks has built a new brand identity for OffMode, a movement to help Australians switch off.
A staggering 41% of Australians are actively looking to digitally detox in 2026, according to research from Nine’s Powered Predicts, while 35% say they would prefer to be removed from the internet entirely.
More than a third also say they often or always feel overwhelmed by the amount of activity they have to respond to on their devices, rising to 52% of Gen Z, according to research published in 2025 Trends of the Year. Meanwhile, Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows just 53% of Australians had face-to-face contact with family or friends outside their household at least once a week in 2025, compared with 68% before the pandemic.
It’s into this environment that OffMode has launched in Australia: a new community built around putting phones away and spending time with other people in real life.
Founded by Andrea Stefanelli and Sofia Bollini, who bring global experience building offline communities, OffMode launched in Sydney with phone-free experiences designed to create space for reading, writing, making, talking and simply being around other people without a screen competing for attention.
With ambitions to grow across Australian cities and eventually internationally, Stefanelli and Bollini came to B Corp-certified agency Young Folks to build the brand foundations for the next phase of growth.
The brief was to create a visual identity that could resonate with culturally tuned-in 25–35 year olds and flex across different cities, event formats and future community offerings.
Erin Morris, Strategy Director at Young Folks, said “OffMode is building much more than a brand here. It’s a movement, and the visual identity needed to reflect that.”
“Our creative team looked to the visual language of clubs from eras gone by, alongside local and global community movements, to build a colourful, flexible system of badge-inspired emblems that could work across different cities, events and expressions of the brand.”
“We were thrilled to help bring Andrea and Sofia’s vision to life. As an agency that exists to use business as a vehicle for positive change, this is exactly the kind of brief we love getting behind.”
The resulting identity takes one of the most familiar gestures from digital life — the slide-to-switch-off button — and turns it into the central device of the OffMode logo. Around it, Young Folks created a broader brand system designed to build recognition and belonging across events, cities, merchandise and communications.
“Almost everyone we talk to wants to spend less time on their phone. The hard part is making it happen in everyday life. We started OffMode to make switching off something you do with other people, and something you actually look forward to.” Stefanelli said.
“OffMode is about to exist in cities we don’t live in, run by people who know those cities far better than we do. The new identity is how someone will know it’s the same thing whether they’re in Sydney or somewhere on the other side of the world, and it gives the people building it with us something solid to stand on and see themselves in.” Bollini said.
OffMode will continue expanding its program of offline experiences across Australia, with plans to grow into new markets across APAC and beyond.
Client: OffMode
Agency: Young Folks
Strategy Director: Erin Morris
Creative Director: Marco González
Designer: Matthew Lumb
Project Manager: Nickie White
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