LIFEAID Beverage Co, Corporate Headquarters, Santa Cruz CA

LIFEAID founders Orion Melehan and Aaron Hinde first met in a Crossfit Box in Santa Cruz, California, in 2009. Melehan was a Certified Financial Planner and Hinde was a sports chiropractor who worked with many local athletes. A friendship was quickly struck, which later evolved into a business partnership. The two were convinced  that conscious consumers would start to demand alternatives to high sugar, high caffeine and artificial mass market drinks.

The company started in a small office on the Westside of Santa Cruz which they quickly outgrew as their products garnered huge interest from the sports and fitness world.  In 2016 the owners decided to take on a 3,500 square foot lease in the old Wrigley building to house their fast growing team.  Stripe was approached to help them design the space for their needs.

The industrial architecture and high ceilings in the building don't warrant much augmentation and serve as the perfect backdrop to the firms bright, confident Branding.  We used a palette of black, white and the main branding color, a crimson red to populate the space and then punctuated it with stripes of the rainbow colors used in the auxiliary beverages in meeting and communal areas like the kitchen.  

The windows which line the back wall offer a beautiful view of the coastline but at a cost: they were way too high up on the walls for the vista to be enjoyed.  We created a large, accessible platform which houses the all team meeting table and both founders' desks from which the view can now be enjoyed with ease.  The wall between the windows boasts a large scale rendition of the company logo with a sting of neon in it's tail.

Design Process:

Our Pinterest board for LIFEAID guided our design process. The design went through a couple of iterations, ultimately ending up closest to this 3D model: