SweatCity ATX
Complete brand identity and web platform for Austin's hardest sauna studio.
SweatCity ATX needed more than a website — they needed an identity that could hold its own against the intensity of the experience they sell. Cold plunges, wood-fired saunas, and a community built around voluntary discomfort. The brand had to feel as serious as the practice without becoming clinical or corporate.
SweatCity had a physical space that spoke for itself — wood-fired saunas, ice baths, a converted warehouse in East Austin. But their digital presence was a generic fitness template that could have belonged to any gym in any city. The founders knew the brand needed to feel like walking into the space: warm, textural, a little confrontational. The old site was losing them clients who judged the experience by the website and decided it wasn't for them.
I started by spending time in the space itself — not to photograph it, but to understand the temperature of the brand. The heat, the grain of reclaimed wood, the condensation on glass. The design language came from materials, not mood boards: dark backgrounds that feel like stepping into a dim room, typography that's bold without being aggressive, photography direction that emphasizes texture and atmosphere over posed fitness shots. The build was Next.js with a custom CMS integration so the team could update class schedules and pricing without touching code. Every component was built to load fast on mobile, because most of their bookings come from someone's phone at 6am deciding whether today is a sauna day.
Online bookings increased significantly in the first month after launch. The average time on site tripled. But the number that mattered most: the founders stopped hearing 'your website doesn't match your space' from new members. The digital experience now feels like a natural extension of the physical one — warm, serious, and specific to who they are.