Sun Day
A participatory tool and digital experience for a sun-powered future: Drawing thousands into a movement for climate action.
Tech Stack
- Next.js
- Sanity
- Mapbox
Collaborators
We partnered with environmentalist Bill McKibben to launch an interactive website at the center of a global climate initiative.
Designed by Collins and Beth Johnson, the platform’s hero feature, a sun-drawing canvas and global gallery, rallied over 6,400 contributions from artists, scientists, and activists alike, including Jane Fonda and McKibben himself.
Project Overview
- 1
Sun Day is a new movement launched by Bill McKibben to build awareness and momentum around solar power, culminating in a global day of action on September 21, 2025. We collaborated with branding partner Collins and designer Beth Johnson to bring the work to life online.
- 2
The site featured a drawing canvas as its centerpiece, allowing visitors to create their own sun and submit it to a real-time global gallery. The drawing tool was thoughtfully engineered for speed, mobile compatibility, and an intuitive experience.
- 3
The gallery collected over 6,400 unique suns submitted from around the world in support for solar energy and a more hopeful climate future. Submissions came from everyday people and prominent figures alike.
A Day of Action, Amplified
Spearheaded by legendary climate advocate Bill McKibben, a hero of ours at Sanctuary Computer, the Sun Day brand identity aimed to create a collective visual gesture in support of a solar-powered planet. In partnership with Collins and designer Beth Johnson, our team built a digital platform to offer event information, participation tools, and most memorably, a creative action anyone could take.
September 21, 2025 marked a globally-coordinated day of action for solar energy. The website helped participants learn more, sign up for local events, and contribute their voice to the growing movement.
Draw Your Own Sun
At the heart of the experience was a custom-built drawing tool that invited users to create and share their own suns. Paired with a gallery of global submissions, it turned the site into a living canvas for optimism and creativity. From young students to seasoned climate advocates, thousands of participants added their vision to the gallery, including notable figures like Jane Fonda and McKibben himself.
Built with performance and accessibility in mind, the canvas was optimized for all devices and users of all ages. Visitors could select colors, draw freeform, and instantly share their creations. The simplicity of the interface allowed the emotional clarity of the campaign to shine.
A Global Movement
Our focus was not only on building a beautiful tool, but ensuring it could handle global participation. The drawing feature was engineered for performance and fluidity across mobile and desktop environments. Working closely with designer Beth Johnson, we polished the user experience to feel tactile and playful while maintaining responsiveness.
Behind the scenes, our architecture supported thousands of live submissions without lag or loss of quality. Each drawing was uploaded to a shared gallery and displayed in real-time, fostering a sense of collective action and global scale.
Environmentalism at Sanctuary
Our studio has always aligned ourselves with environmentalism and climate-related causes. In 2019, we offset 150% of our studio’s carbon footprint since our founding in 2015, each year since, we’ve released an annual sustainability report detailing our ongoing commitment to carbon negativity. We also operate Seaborne, a sustainability consultancy set up to help our clients measure and mitigate their own environmental impact.
We're proud to align our technical practice with the kind of future we want to build, and to work with one of our heroes, Bill McKibben, on this powerful initiative.