Sleep Jar

“Alexa, play rain sounds on Sleep Jar.”

Sleep Jar is a leading app for audio content designed to improve sleep and mental wellness. Originally developed for Alexa-enabled devices, Sleep Jar now offers sounds and original content across a variety of platforms.

The Sleep Jar logo had to solve a few problems. First, it obviously had to convey exactly what the product did, and other than the name, we designed a clever representation of capturing sleep in a jar. Next, the mark had to be interesting enough to carry the brand from app icons into loading screens. Finally, the wordmark had to feel “contemporarily quiet” as the app exists alongside big competition, yet the product offering is passive background noise. In the development of the palette, we evolved a wide array of options for the brand. We leaned into low-light options, even intentionally choosing to avoid a night mode, as our user testing was indicating the app is used at night, and therefore, it should always be dim. The colors are combined in the least disruptive ways possible, while still capturing the brand essence.

Branding
Motion
Illustration
Product

App Icon

At launch, Sleep Jar offered 104 unique sleep sounds. Each needed a unique icon, and, along with the icon set, we opted for something we thought could differentiate the Sleep Jar experience: a unique illustrated and animated scene, seamlessly looping for each sound. Because the app exists across so many platforms (and code bases), we put the restriction on the illustrations that each one had to be coded and a reasonable file size. We were able to put together a full library of simple, fun, and satisfying graphics.

In developing the mobile experience for Sleep Jar, the team and I leaned into how customers engaged with the content from a purely voice-driven interaction to design the new flow. We found that most customers were used to specific patterns; the content they wanted became part of their routine, and using this as creative direction, we designed the app to be as unobtrusive as possible. The goal is to get to content in the fewest clicks possible (which is ✨1✨).

We were able to launch the mobile versions of Sleep Jar, growing it to one of the leading apps for audio content designed to improve sleep and mental wellness. The app has a rating of 4.7/5 on the App Store and a 4.5/5 on the Play Store. Sleep Jar has been able to further their offerings with original content, like narrated sleep stories, guided meditations, journeys, and more. Check out Sleep Jar here.

Jonathan Cooper