wksrf — Strategy, brand, and a live club app for an invite-only Lake Tahoe wakesurf crew

The story

A Lake Tahoe wakesurf crew was running every session through scattered group texts — who’s riding, whose boat, is there a seat, is the water even worth the drive? We helped shape wksrf from a gear-marketplace idea into what the club actually needed: an invite-only digital clubhouse.

The strategy work included deciding what not to charge for. A trusted local club would simply route around marketplace fees, so the marketplace for used gear and boats runs free, member to member, and monetization moved to merch and local sponsorship where it fits the culture.

From there we built the brand and the product together: a sun-faded “first light, full boat” identity with a full merch system, and a mobile-first app shipped at AI speed. Members read the lake through a live 0–100 surf score — fed by open-source local weather and water data feeds, with a storm-safety override — post and join boat runs with role-based RSVPs and automatic waitlists, keep crew chat and ride photos in one place, and get in only one way: a member’s invite.

Results: First commit to a live, installable app in 12 days; a 0–100 surf score piped from live open-source weather and water feeds, with a 7-day outlook; runs, roles, waitlists, crew chat, memories, and a used-gear & boat marketplace — the whole club in one calm place instead of a dozen group threads.

The live wksrf app — landing page, conditions meter, and members' sign-in, over glassy Tahoe water

Boat runs in the wksrf app — the runs feed with seats and crew makeup, and a run detail with RSVP

The wksrf shop — club merch drop beside the member-to-member gear marketplace

A few pieces from the work

Behind the scenes

The design system behind the app

wksrf's identity wasn't drawn in a design tool. It was built with AI as a living design system — review boards, decision studios, component specs, and UI kits, written in code — and the shipped app inherits it token for token. These are actual pages from that system.

01 the wordmark, settledCustom letterforms with sheared, cut terminals — so "rf" never reads as "n", and the cuts rhyme with the emblem's tips.

Before-and-after emblem study — the founder's multi-petal concept simplified to one sun with a wave carved out — **02 one emblem, not two**The founder's own concept, simplified: one sun, one wave carved out as negative space. It becomes the app icon, the avatar, and the dot in the wordmark.

Identity-system board naming the four marks and the job each one does — **03 four pieces, four jobs**The identity as a small kit — primary logo, workhorse logotype, square emblem, display cut — each with a named job and rules for where it lives.

iOS-framed UI kit mock of the wksrf conditions screen — surf score, best window, wind and water metrics — **04 the app, designed before it was built**An interactive, iPhone-framed UI kit mocked the whole club experience first; the production app was then built to match it, screen for screen.

Component specimen sheet — conditions score dials, role badges, avatars, and crew-makeup indicators — **05 component specimens**Conditions score, role badges, crew makeup — every interface piece specced as a component before it was wired into the product.

The three approved apparel graphics — Summer Programme poster, Golden Hour Index, and Still Water — marked approved — **06 the gear, locked**Apparel graphics went through four exploration waves before three were approved: Summer Programme, Golden Hour Index, Still Water.

Actual pages from the working files, not mockups

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