Imagine a Place

Read the campaign story

Discord’s 2021 Imagine a Place campaign asked users to describe what the service meant to them. AKQA’s own project account explains how responses to the open-ended prompt informed the creative world. A later showcase film featured Danny DeVito and Awkwafina; contemporary production coverage identifies director Finn Keenan and Riff Raff alongside AKQA.

The campaign used imaginative descriptions to communicate a service that could mean different things to different groups. The wider platform and film are counted together. The available sources establish the approach and contributors, not that every viewer understood the product or every user experienced belonging. Broad promotional awareness statements are not treated as controlled evidence, and creative fantasy is not presented as a guarantee about platform safety or privacy.

Editorial interpretation: an open sentence can uncover language that a feature workshop would miss. Users describe the social meaning of a tool, not only what its buttons do. That gives a creative team material with genuine variety and emotional specificity. The challenge is to preserve the useful insight while making the final communication intelligible to people who have never used the service and cannot decode its internal references.

Editorial interpretation: surreal worldbuilding can hold contradictory descriptions together without forcing them into a single literal definition. It also creates a risk of making the platform seem magical or frictionless. An adaptation should provide an ordinary explanation nearby: what the service does, how to begin and what rules apply. The imaginative invitation and the practical onboarding should complement one another rather than compete for the audience’s limited attention.

Ask for meaning before asking for praise

Use a neutral prompt that allows surprising, mixed or modest descriptions rather than soliciting only testimonials. Explain how responses may be used and obtain specific permission before publishing identifiable contributions. The goal is to learn the language people naturally use, not to manufacture a chorus of approval. Negative or confusing responses can reveal gaps the final campaign should not conceal.

Build an outsider’s explanation from insider language

Select expressions that reveal something useful about the service and test them with unfamiliar viewers. Add enough context to make the metaphor understandable without flattening its personality. If the work is enjoyable only to existing users, decide whether that is intentional. A campaign meant to broaden understanding needs a bridge from community shorthand to a clear account of the product’s role.

Keep imaginative promises separate from operational claims

Review every scene for implications about features, access, moderation and privacy. Fiction can communicate atmosphere, but viewers may still infer practical promises. Pair the story with accurate current guidance and avoid suggesting that a welcoming visual world describes every real interaction. This protects both prospective users and the community members whose experiences inspired the creative in the first place.

A small test for another brief

Proposed adaptation: invite consenting adults to complete a neutral sentence about a low-risk service, then build three original illustrated metaphors with a plain-language explanation beside each.

Measure what the service appears to do, who it seems useful for and which claims viewers infer from the imagery. Compare metaphor recall with practical understanding, and record mismatches rather than treating imaginative enthusiasm as sufficient success.

Stop if the work reveals private community information, misrepresents contributors or implies guarantees about safety, acceptance or functionality that the service cannot support.

• Collect only the response and minimal permission details, with no private conversation histories.
• Let contributors review any attributed wording and offer anonymous participation.
• Test the illustrations with newcomers before considering public distribution.