Manhattan Hydraulics

How we work

Work

Manhattan Hydraulics
Cocoon
Family’s second home in Tribeca
Cocoon
Family’s second home in Tribeca

Ask

An e-commerce booking platform, Shopify app, and marketing site to bring Cocoon to the public for the very first time

Outcome

A brand-new digital presence, including a bespoke visual identity, Sanity Studio CMS, and Shopify app for back-end booking management—resulting in millions in memberships and bookings processed since launch

Role

Product strategy, product design, branding

Website design using playful illustrations and photography to advertise memberships and class registration

Cocoon is a social and learning club in NYC that offers holistic, expert-led programming to help parents navigate family life. Hydro collaborated with Cocoon's founders on a comprehensive e-commerce website, including a redesigned brand identity.

The flexible design system and robust CMS tools allow Cocoon to present their memberships and hundreds of offerings clearly for their audience of caretakers and families.

The visual identity takes its inspiration from Cocoon’s Tribeca, NYC community hub, creating a cohesive ecosystem evoking a child-like wonder of discovery and creativity.

Seamless booking for families

Cocoon came to us with a vision of selling hundreds, if not thousands, of bookable offerings for families: recurring events, one-off events, space tours, parkour classes, private birthday parties, and much more. Family life can be hectic and caregivers don’t need another thing to juggle, so our goal was to make the simplest, easiest tool possible.

We designed a flexible information architecture to support their diverse line-up, and enable a user-friendly e-commerce experience. The booking features make it fun to find the perfect offerings for one’s family, book events and courses without hassle, and manage activity schedules in one convenient place.

Mobile screen showing a course offering

Efficient scheduling for staff

Managing a fast-growing business is hard; managing a booking-based business is even more challenging. Through market research, we found that most existing bookings platforms are clunky, and lack the flexibility and customization that Cocoon needed for all of their various offerings.

Instead of compromising on ease or features, we built our own Shopify App for high-growth businesses. Shopify Bookings takes away the headaches of managing e-commerce products, bookings, and resources, and will be available soon in the Shopify marketplace.

Two Cocoon membership tier cards
Eight illustrated icons related to childcare and families
Colorful illustration of a family

A warm welcome on the world wide web

As we built out their web products, Cocoon realized that their design system was limited—they had an abundance of offerings and their visual identity needed to be flexible enough to support all of it.

We created a new visual identity to bring Cocoon's story to life, using an earthy color palette, a careful selection of open-source typefaces and a set of energetic illustrations made in collaboration with illustrator Ohni Lisle. Together these elements evoke the same warmth, liveliness, and play embodied in Cocoon's Tribeca headquarters.

Close up photograph of two parents holding their child in their arms interacting with each other
Website showing my current bookings

Supporting their growth

Our initial work with Cocoon has helped them sell millions of dollars in memberships and bookings thus far. Now, they’re expanding to a second location to help families across New York City live happy and healthy lives. We continue to partner with Cocoon—collaborating with their founders to build on this strong foundation as the business and community grow, change, and learn.

Three mobile screenshots from a social and learning club for families