Abide

UX & Visual Design

Abide is a Christian meditation app with over a million downloads. I was brought in through Twigeo to run static ad creative, and ended up helping modernize their subscription model, redesign their App Store presence, and shape the visual direction that fed into their rebrand.

Role

Tools

Type

UX & Graphic Designer

Figma, Adobe After Effects

Client work · Twigeo

The Brief

Twigeo brought me on to run static ad creative for Abide, a Christian meditation app with over a million downloads. That was the job. What it turned into was something else entirely.

How it grew

Early on, App Store Optimization got added to the scope. I learned ASO from scratch working alongside an external team based in Stockholm, collaborating across a wide timezone gap to get the campaigns performing. Working that closely with the product meant I was spending a lot of time inside the app itself, and that's when I started noticing things that had nothing to do with my brief.

The problem nobody asked me to solve

Abide's checkout flow was almost impossible to describe without it sounding like a joke. To upgrade to premium, users had to go to the website, then either email the team, mail a physical check, or pay online for a full year upfront at $70. Then create an account. Then receive a code. Then input that code to unlock premium. On a mobile app. In 2022.

The benefits screen was just as bad. All it said was the premium tier was "ad free with extended bedtime stories." That was it. No mention of continuous audio streaming, no mention of the fact that you could lock your phone and keep it playing, which for a sleep app is one of the most important features they had. Nobody knew it existed because nobody was telling them.

What we pitched

I put together a full modernization pitch and presented it directly to Abide's marketing lead myself. I'd built enough of a relationship with their team that it made sense for me to be in the room. The pitch covered three things: a monthly subscription option through Apple at $9.99 alongside the existing $70 annual plan, a rebuilt benefits screen with a proper free vs premium feature comparison, and new homepage designs that pushed a calmer, more natural visual direction.

They were reluctant on the monthly subscription at first, understandably. As a religious nonprofit that had been taking checks in the mail, the idea of monthly payments felt like a big shift. But once the checkout modernization was on the table, moving to Apple's subscription platform made the whole thing click.

What I made

Working alongside a PM and data analyst to make sure the campaign decisions were grounded in real performance data, I designed the full subscription experience solo: the free vs premium comparison screen, the benefits breakdown surfacing features users didn't know they had, testimonials pulled directly from real App Store reviews, and new homepage concepts that pushed the brand toward something calmer and more considered.

The App Store reviews weren't just decoration. We used them to mine keywords for ad campaigns, tailor messaging across social, and A/B test different angles. The reviews told us what users actually valued, and we built the messaging around that.

The Full Scope

The subscription redesign was the biggest design challenge but it was one part of a larger body of work. I redesigned Abide's full App Store presence, updating every screenshot to reflect the current product and surface the features users actually cared about. The before and after tells the story: the original screenshots were generic and outdated, the new ones led with benefits, social proof, and real UI.

On the campaign side I designed the full suite of Meta ad creative, static ads, and supported an influencer program where creators talked directly about their experience with the app. The visual language across all of it, the calm blues, the open landscapes, the scripture overlays, stayed consistent whether it was a paid ad or an organic video.