Alexander Prins

Coffee Club

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My Contributions
Brand identity
UX/UI design
Copywriting 
Social media content 
Branded Photography
and Videography

An app-based subscription for patrons of Northern Vessel, a local coffee shop aiming to leverage technology to create a better coffee experience. 

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Project Premise (Coffee Club 1.0)

Iteration is in the DNA of Northern Vessel, and Coffee Club is a direct representation of that.

In the months leading up to the opening of Northern Vessel in late fall of 2022, the idea of offering a subscription service to patrons of the coffee shop began to form. Patrons could download the Northern Vessel app, subscribe in the app, and use the app to redeem their subscription services at the coffee shop.

Initially, the entire premise of the subscription was based around weekly pickups of 64oz bottles of oat milk Cold Brew Latte (Northern Vessel’s most popular product). This concept was seen as just another way that customers could interact with the shop, and was the only way to obtain the product in a larger quantity. 

After floating the idea to people close to the project, the minimum entry price of $100/month for 4 bottles of coffee seemed too high of a barrier to entry for wider appeal, and the addition of “Endless Drip” coffee for just $50/month seemed to balance the concept out. Seeing as the closest thing to a name was “Bottle Pickup”, the addition of Endless Drip necessitated an umbrella name, something that could be turned into a sub-brand of Northern Vessel, that could be built on and added to in the future. Thus, the team named the subscription service Coffee Club. 

This version of Coffee Club came to be known as “1.0”, defined by the offering of two different subscriptions: Bottle Pickup and Endless Drip.

A complete restructuring of the subscription service in February of 2023 became “2.0”, defined by one simple subscription offering, with streamlined communication and a significantly more affordable entry price. 

The need for the change from 1.0 to 2.0 will be laid out in the following paragraphs, as well as the role that design played. 

Project Contributers:
Joey Freeland - Lead Software Architect
Ben Myklebust - UX/UI Consultant
Alexander Prins - UX/UI Design, Identity Design, Copywriting

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Brand Identity

Coffee Club is a sub-brand of Northern Vessel, and exists in heirarchy to the parent brand. With this in mind, the aim was to create a wordmark and corresponding iconography that played in the sandbox that had been created for Northern Vessel, while being distinct enough that Coffee Club would be recognizable within the framework of the Northern Vessel brand. 

The wordmark lends itself to the mid-century retro script trend, intentionally establishing itself as a classic and distinct mark. Given that the inital business model for Coffee Club was simply picking up glass bottles that are typically used for milk, something harkening back to a period of time when milk was more commonly found in glass bottles felt appropriate. Relevant to note: the Coffee Club mark was intentionally not adhered to the glass bottles, as the bottles were multi-functional in the business, and therefore were branded more generically. This typeface is used as a contextual display typeface, and Coffee Club retains the type heirarchy of Northern Vessel’s core brand for all other purposes. 

The Bottle Pickup and Endless Drip icons continue the concept of being distinct, meant to be simple and immediately recognizable to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Circles and arrows communicate the subscription model with similar simple distinction. 

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Complications and Underperformance

Coffee Club 1.0 only lasted for about 2 months, as the initial reception to the app was high, but the conversion rate was terribly low. Hundreds of people downloaded the app, created and verified their accounts... and yet Northern Vessel only had 7 accounts (give or take) subscribed to Coffee Club for the entire duration of 1.0.

Internally, this was confusing, as we thought our execution on the idea was great. Ultimately, the subscription model itself was just too complex and demanding. 

Given that many consumers are susceptible to choice overload, and that the entry price was too high combined with the lack of a “pause subscription” feature, it stands to reason that 1.0 didn’t convert as hoped. 

Overwhelming user flow, too many options, too high of barrier to entry for the customer.

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Coffee Club 2.0

In January of 2023, we began work with Northern Vessel CEO & Founder, T.J. Rude, to rework the model with a February re-launch date of Coffee Club 2.0 on the horizon.

The new model was streamlined and affordable. It delivered more than it asked for in return, and most importantly, had a little something for everyone. 

The project began to follow a sort of reversal of a core Northern Vessel tenet, “excellence in simplicity” by looking to offer “more for less.” In order to keep the additions to the offering clear and non-confusing to people, more iconography was added. Despite additions of visual language, the subscription shrank from two options to just one, containing discounts for all categories of Northern Vessel consumers, for just $10/month.

Coming full circle, this embodied “excellence in simplicity” far more than Coffee Club 1.0.