Serving Fresh
Serving Fresh is a food delivery platform, bringing fresh produce from the farmer's market to people's doorsteps in San Jose. As lead designer, I took the project from concept to launch in one year, designing the brand identity, mobile app, website, and admin dashboard. I also led marketing efforts, which helped the business acquire 180 unique customers and process over 350 orders, establishing a strong foundation for the platform.
Role
Product Designer
Timeframe
September 2020 - November 2021
Bridging Local Farms and Families
In 2020, as the world grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic, a unique opportunity emerged to support local farmers and provide fresh produce to consumers in San Jose. This challenge led to the creation of Serving Fresh, a food delivery platform I had the privilege to design from the ground up.
As the lead product designer for this initiative, my responsibilities encompassed:
Crafting the brand identity
Designing the mobile and web user experiences
Leading the marketing team in creating newsletters and social media assets
My involvement in multiple aspects of the project allowed me to ensure a cohesive user experience across all touchpoints, from the first marketing interaction to the final delivery.
An Underdeveloped App
Serving Fresh started with a bare-bones mobile app that lacked both branding and usability. This presented us with a core challenge: How do we transform an underdeveloped app into a cohesive, user-friendly platform that connects local farmers with consumers?
Design Goals
Create a Distinctive Brand Identity
Craft a fresh, vibrant identity for Serving Fresh that communicates our unique farm-to-doorstep value proposition and resonates with our target audience.
Implement a Mobile-First Design
Develop a user-friendly mobile app as the primary platform, prioritizing intuitive design to inform subsequent web development.
Understanding the Value Proposition
Before diving into design, I collaborated closely with the founder to establish Serving Fresh's core value proposition:
Serving Fresh connects local farmers who have seen a decrease in sales in 2020 to consumers who are motivated to eat healthy and order online to limit exposure to COVID-19.
This value proposition became the cornerstone of our design strategy, informing our goals and guiding our decisions throughout the design process. It helped us focus on creating a platform that would effectively bridge the gap between struggling local farmers and health-conscious, safety-minded consumers.
Establishing Brand Values
With the value proposition in place, our next step was to define the core brand values that would guide our visual and messaging strategies:
Vitality: Symbolizing the brand's energy and dedication to empowering local communities.
Freshness: Representing the vibrancy and quality of freshly harvested produce the brand guarantees.
To translate these values into visual elements, I created a moodboard that captured the essence of vitality and freshness. The moodboard included:
Vibrant, natural colors reminiscent of fresh produce
Images of local farmers and their harvests
Modern, clean design elements to convey efficiency and ease of use
Typography that balanced professionalism with approachability
Mobile App Development
As part of our mobile-first strategy, I led the design of the Serving Fresh app. Key features included:
Intuitive produce browsing and ordering system
Farmer profiles to showcase local producers
Streamlined checkout process
Order tracking functionality
The app was successfully submitted and approved for both the App Store and Google Play, marking a significant milestone in our project.
Website Integration
Concurrent with the mobile app development, I designed a complementary website to ensure a consistent user experience across platforms. The website mirrored the app's core functionality while taking advantage of the larger screen real estate to showcase:
More detailed farmer stories and produce information
Expanded search and filter options
Responsive design for various desktop and tablet screen sizes
By aligning the design language and user flow between the app and website, we created a cohesive digital ecosystem for Serving Fresh.
Admin Site: Streamlining Operations
As Serving Fresh grew, we needed a way to manage our expanding operations efficiently. I designed an admin dashboard to streamline our internal processes and give us better control over our day-to-day operations.
Admin site goals:
Manage customer data and farm details
Update inventory and mark delivery zones
Issue customer satisfaction coupons
Provide overview of key business metrics
Marketing and Community Engagement
To grow Serving Fresh's customer base, I took charge of our marketing efforts across multiple channels. This involved:
Leading a team of 5 marketing interns to create and schedule content
Designing and managing Mailchimp newsletters
Creating content for Instagram posts, Facebook and Nextdoor ads
These initiatives helped increase brand awareness and customer engagement during Serving Fresh's first year of operation.
Mailchimp newsletter
Instagram posts, facebook and nextdoor ads
Impact
As the lead designer, I guided Serving Fresh from concept to a fully operational platform within one year. The project's impact includes:
Adoption & community building
Scaled from 0 to over 180 unique customers in the first year of operation
Processed over 350 orders
Gained 146 newsletter subscribers
Takeaways
Holistic Design Approach
I learned the importance of considering all aspects of a product ecosystem. Designing not just the consumer-facing app and website, but also the admin dashboard, showed me how these interconnected components add to the success of the platform.
Cross-Functional Skills
Taking on diverse responsibilities beyond design expanded my skill set and product understanding. Leading design, branding, and marketing efforts taught me to approach design with a broader perspective, considering not just usability but also brand consistency and user acquisition strategies.