Financial Abuse Translator
The Financial Abuse Translator uses everyday phrases and situations to reveal how financial abuse often hides in plain sight. Built as an awareness and education tool, the project aims to help people identify financial control, manipulation, and economic restriction within personal relationships, something that is frequently overlooked or misunderstood.
Our role at Sardine Mother was to develop the visual language for the initiative. Through illustration-led design and thoughtful graphic visuals, we translated a complex and sensitive subject into something clear, approachable, and easy to engage with. The focus was on supporting StoryHack’s narrative-driven approach, using design as a tool for storytelling, not decoration.
The Love Language Translator cleverly hacked Instagram’s story translation feature to reframe everyday relationship language. By curating and sourcing hundreds of real-life accounts, the campaign presented these stories in a fictionalised format, highlighting how emotional and financial abuse is frequently disguised as love, care, or concern.
Our role at Sardine Mother was to develop the visual language that supported this narrative-driven approach. Through illustration-led design and thoughtful visual storytelling, we helped translate complex, sensitive realities into accessible, scroll-stopping visuals that worked seamlessly within Instagram Stories. The focus was on clarity, empathy, and impact, using design as a tool to provoke recognition and conversation rather than shock.
Launched on Women’s Day, the campaign saw significant traction across social media and quickly gained widespread attention. Building on this momentum, Fi later integrated the initiative into their app through an AI-powered bot, allowing users to ask direct questions such as “What is financial abuse?” or “What can I do if I’m in a financially abusive relationship?”. In partnership with Majlis, they also created actionable resources to support users seeking help.
