Your First Rain

Your First Rain. The moment you know for sure your mom has Alzheimer's. It's surreal — like it's raining indoors, and everyone's grown so used to the puddles they've stopped seeing how wrong it is. I coined this phrase for everything that comes before the diagnosis — the signs no one names out loud.

The Challenge

Most people don't know it's Alzheimer's — and don't know the diagnosis needs to happen early. Brain-health awareness shouldn't start at the first lost memory. It should start at retirement, when people are already stepping into a new lifestyle.

The Insight

So we built the blind-box felt characters — Grandpa, Grandma, and the lambs — as the vehicle, not the message. Unassuming enough to fit a grandparent's actual lifestyle: a trip to the library to check out a retirement book, a shelf at home. They disarm before they inform, opening conversations about brain health and early signs that people wouldn't otherwise start.

The Execution

An installation built to live in a hospital lobby. Felted animations and a postcard series that turn learning the early signs into something a family does together — not a pamphlet they're handed.