THE CHALLENGE

Our team set out to translate sweetgreen’s mission of connecting people to real food into a brand and online ordering experience.

We needed to define a new model of ordering fast food, using efficiencies enabled by digital service design to create an incredible user experience that was anything but transactional. The brand itself needed to foster a personal connection to customers to generate loyalty.

OUR APPROACH

Through every stage of our work with sweetgreen, Gin Lane has taken a customer-first approach, understanding the needs of the user as they seek convenient, healthy food that fits the lifestyle they aspire to. 

Using our learnings, we have continually set out to design a holistic experience that compliments user desires and behaviors.

I. ART DIRECTION

A new precedent for capturing fresh ingredients.

The ambition of our initial work with sweetgreen was to turn the principles behind the growing brand into a cohesive visual language. sweetgreen set a new precedent for the quality of ingredients and experience in a fast-casual model. The art direction needed to celebrate and add to that experience.

In developing the brand’s art direction, we emphasized the creativity of the brand by capturing the freshness of the ingredients. This required the feeling of a tactile quality through insightful photography, clean design, and an optimistic voice.

II. TECHNOLOGY

Building personalization into every touchpoint.

Our goal was to blend the best of sweetgreen’s physical dining experience with the emerging efficiencies of digital design to create an incredible user experience at every customer touchpoint.

We achieved this by rethinking sweetgreen’s entire technological infrastructure, building a native iOS ordering application — the infrastructure and middle layers required to connect all of the brick and mortar stores.

The new ecosystem enabled sweetgreen to adapt to fit the needs of its growing business while satisfying its customer needs. Since, it’s inspired a new model of service that spans physical and digital spaces.

III. STRATEGY

Increasing conversion through deeper relationships.

With a new desktop platform and mobile app, online ordering increased from a single-digit share of business to almost one third. From there, we worked to enhance the digital ordering experience to enable deeper engagement between the brand and its customers, to increase digital conversion.


Our focus was on fostering loyalty by building more intimate, personal relationships with each customer. By developing a genuine understanding of each customer’s needs and behaviors, we could proactively curate a personalized sweetgreen experience that produced a sense of being cared for.

IV. UX & PRODUCT DESIGN

A systematic design language that married strategy and user experience.

We translated the strategy into a delightful digital product that enabled our prioritized features to manifest the connection between the individual and their local sweetgreen store. For example, personalized homepages enabled quick reordering and a personalized greeting based on the users name and preferences.


From there, we designed a design system that ensured the experience was fluid across touchpoints and breakpoints. The visual language unified visual design, branding, interaction, and motion.