From 2019–2022, I partnered with founder Annabel Lawee to pilot Fly With Breeze — an on-demand foodservice for airport travelers focused on health, convenience, and peace of mind.
Designed B2C UX/UI from concept to launch, crafting iOS and web apps that made it easy for flyers to pre-order meals directly to their terminal.
Shaped the brand’s identity, product storytelling, and content strategy to make Breeze feel light, calming, and humane while standing out amidst airport chaos.
Breeze’s pilot experience ran at LAX Terminal 2 from January 2020 – March 2022. From concept to exit, I collaborated closely with the core founders, while leading a creative studio team.
Despite launching into a global pandemic, Breeze achieved remarkable business and consumer success, culminating in a successful acquisition by an airport operator in 2022.
Attributed to one activation at LAX T2
Operating in 8-hour daily shifts
Strong word-of-mouth drove organic growth
Mapping customer journeys through a user-centric lens helped us iterate through testing, allowing for agile tweaks as business needs evolved.
My early design focus was defining and validating the app MVP, so we could move confidently into real-world kitchen tests — all while building a brand identity that evoked ease and trust.
Conducted research and mined insights from frequent flyers
Crafted brand values, wireframes, and customer journeys
Prototyped at increasing fidelities to test and optimize app experience
Delivered high-fidelity, responsive interfaces and brand marketing creative
To move fast across research, design, and content, I used a familiar stack of collaboration tools:
Foodservice is a crowded, competitive market. While premium nutrition is a tough space to stand out in, we observed convenient nutrition can be a key differentiator, which felt especially relevant given the limited options available in airports.
We interviewed a couple dozen air travelers, sampling health-conscious flyers, young parents, and flight crews. By querying food habits and travel experiences, we mined insights to uncover key airport food challenges.
From interview transcripts, I affinity mapped resonant moments through an organizing principle of problem statements v. human truths:
By analyzing these problems & truths — and clustering them by affinities — clear themes emerged that would inform Breeze’s brand value proposition:
Hugely frustrating for flyers with diet restrictions or tight connections
Flyers end up making food choices inconsistent with lifestyle
On-the-go travelers need confidence food will be ready post-security
Checkout needs to be as easy as ordering from food court (ie. no sign-up required)
Once Breeze’s pilot was set for LAX Terminal 2, we set out to learn more about the IRL airport environment. While at LAX, we observed:
Lines up to 30 minutes long at nearby foodservices (great opp, but would require efficiency)
Pickup locale had weak data connections and service (app download barrier)
These real-world observations of long lines and spotty Wi-Fi led us to pivot mid-process, adding a responsive web app alongside the native iOS experience. By expanding the app offering, we could activate order flows by QR code, and even operate on POS terminal tablets.
While scope increased, this strategic shift would prove critical in propelling the speed of Breeze’s go-to-market success.
Our target customers were frequent travelers — Delta SkyMiles members, flight crew, and health-conscious flyers moving through LAX. Many had dietary restrictions (gluten-free, vegan, keto), or simply wanted a better alternative to prepackaged sandwiches and long Starbucks lines.
Eventually, based on order makeup and frequency, we grouped customers into three core personas that all needed fast, trustworthy food to fuel their bodies — without disrupting their airport travel flow.
Health-minded and ingredient-aware, often with food restrictions
Traveling with kids, value ease and time-saving
Moving fast, value reliability and order-ahead simplicity
With these customers in mind, I synthesized our problems and insights into the following core brand values. Delivering on these four values — quality, inclusivity, convenience, and reliability — would become my north stars for designing Breeze’s consumer experience.
Crave-worthy food from wholesome ingredients
Familiar options for a wide range of diets & preferences
Efficient service powered by an easy ordering experience
Peace-of-mind in the most unpredictable environment
In sum, we set out to build an on-demand foodservice to provide nutrition-aware flyers with convenient access to crave-worthy food.
Early UX flows mapped the customer journey. We emphasized mobile-first ordering, minimal decision fatigue, and guest checkout convenience, so everything from scanning a QR code to placing an order was easily doable in 60 seconds or less.
Once UX flows were aligned with the kitchen/back-of-house system being built, I designed wireframes into a mobile prototype. Tap through the interactive prototype to try it yourself.
I tested flows early and often, enabling the product team to confidently move into software development. By stepping through flows with frequent flyers, we refined clarity and reduced friction for first-time customers ahead of full development.
These early tests surfaced key insights and design updates:
In order to more easily give customers a bird’s eye view on Breeze’s offering, I refactored thumbnail cards to be horizontal, allowing for quicker scanning.
Customers with diet preferences should easily ascertain what options are right for them, so I pulled dietary info forward to showcase lifestyle compliancy upfront on card thumbnails.
After initially validating the designs, we shipped iOS and web app MVPs to begin stress testing and gathering real-world feedback from LAX travelers.
Pilot feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with post-pickup survey participation rates exceeding industry averages (25% vs. 10–15% norm).
25% response rate to text surveys
Over 90+ unique user reviews
In follow-up surveys, travelers praised Breeze for being faster and healthier than anything else in-terminal:
78% felt food was healthy & accommodating
89% said app ordering was easy
75% found pickup effortless & convenient
We gained confidence from these early product-market fit (PMF) signals, yet quickly iterated to meaningfully improve both the offering:
To help travelers navigate to what they wanted faster, we suggested menu items dynamically based on time of day (breakfast v. lunch/dinner)
To improve pickup wayfinding, I added another visual layer to the pickup location view — combining a photo, an abstracted map, and a persistent header relaying each order’s timing
While the core product was being validated in-person at LAX, my focus shifted to delivering the creative brand vision.
After building out content strategy pillars, I led a lean studio team of creative specialists to execute the vision, producing an educational series that built awareness for Breeze’s offering and presence at LAX T2 for both organic and paid marketing channels.
All creative elements — from color and type to studio shoots and motion — reflected a calming dependability amidst airport chaos
A sky-inspired palette — soft blues with sunset oranges, yellows, and pinks — that let vibrant ingredients take center stage
Throughout the product experience Breeze’s brand voice was equally distinct at every consumer touchpoint. From social channels to app microcopy, we always strove to be candid, friendly, and clear.
To help educate and meet customers where they were, I designed social and out-of-home (OOH) creative centered on our go-to-market messaging pillars, building educational narrative beats ahead of the pilot launch.
By the time we had optimized our customer journey, Breeze’s app was:
Order flows converted customers, earning praise in reviews and on social media
Fully responsive across app’s web-based and native iOS experiences
During an unusually stressful time to experience airports
Breeze launched at LAX in January 2020 — just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped global travel.
Despite the timing, Breeze’s pilot achieved remarkable success: high NPS scores, glowing customer feedback, and strong daily order volume from both travelers and flight crews.
The product hit a nerve in the best way: people loved having a healthier, faster, and friendlier food option at the airport.
Attributed to one activation at LAX T2
Operating in 8-hour daily shifts
Survey sent after order pickup
When the pandemic struck businesses flat footed, Breeze’s QR-powered menu was able to stand out ahead of the curve with a modern pickup and delivery system that thrived in an especially stressful airport environment.
This project reinforced my belief that good design can create calm in chaotic environments. I learned how to:
Crafted a convenient product experience for real-time constraints (like tight airport dwell times)
Created a consumer brand from scratch that instilled peace of mind and turned stressed flyers into trusting fans
Synthesized brand, UX, animation, and product strategy together to stand out, build credibility, and grow loyalty
Alex was absolutely foundational in bringing Breeze to life. From day one, he deeply understood the brand we needed to build — not just visually, but experientially — helping us stand out in one of the most chaotic, high-pressure environments imaginable: the airport.
He took us from 0 to 1 — leading all design and creative direction from the ground up. From translating abstract ideas into a world-class, intuitive ordering app to crafting a joyful, cohesive user experience, Alex brought clarity, strategy, and soul to every pixel.
His ability to synthesize brand, product, and user behavior into a seamless system helped define what Breeze became. His creative leadership was instrumental in launching a product that thousands of travelers came to rely on, even through the pandemic, ultimately positioning us for acquisition.
And beyond all that, Alex is simply an incredible human to work with. Positive, collaborative, endlessly solutions-oriented — he brings a calm, can-do energy to every challenge. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner to help bring an ambitious vision to life.
If I were to return to Breeze today, I’d push us to explore opportunities like:
I loved breathing life into Annabel’s 0 → 1 founder vision, and was especially proud when Breeze’s outcomes and consumer success led to an acquisition.
