Knack Gold Circle
A premium loyalty rewards web app for a film post-production studio
Product Strategy
Product Design
Art Direction
Building a sophisticated digital experience for a premium app.
OVERVIEW
Knack Studios is a premium post-production house in India offering sound, visual effects, color grading, and mastering for feature films and OTT productions. Their clients — mostly producers and directors — run multiple projects simultaneously, often spending significant sums across services.
THE ASK
Knack wanted a loyalty program that would reward clients for every rupee spent and give them access to exclusive services in return. But this wasn't just about points — it was about making top-tier producers feel like Gold Circle members, by providing a sophisticated digital experience, making them feel valued.
Visual Effects
Gold Circle Status
Prodigy - Our new members are rewarded with this status
Creative Genius - First Milestone on completion of 2-4 projects levels up to this status
Legend - Next Milestone on completion of 5+ projects places you in this esteemed status.
Level Up to Legend status by completing 3 more projects
5,000
Lifetime Reward points
Hi Harish
Gold Circle Member
View Account Activity
Date: 12/03/2025
Order #123456
600 Redeemed
AI Concept Development
Redeemable Points
400
Thank you for your order
Customer Experience Executive will reach out to you soon for further details.
The Role of Sound in Cinematic Storytelling
Harish Ram
8657
Creative Genius
Knack
Gold Circle
Teaser Mix / Announcement Misc
STRATEGY
The problem wasn't loyalty. It was invisibility.
Knack Studios had built genuine relationships with some of India's biggest film producers. But those relationships lived entirely in people's heads — in calls, meetings, and handshakes. When a producer finished a project with Knack, there was no system to say: we see you, we value you, come back.
I started by addressing three core pillars:
Feel premium, not promotional
Loyalty apps in most industries feel like discount mechanics. This one needed to feel like a membership — something a producer would be proud to hold. Every visual choice, every word, had to reflect Knack's standing as a premium studio.
Speak the language of film
Producers think in projects, not accounts. They talk about shoots, not subscriptions. The entire product architecture — from how services are categorized to how activity is logged — needed to mirror how film professionals actually work.
Earn trust through transparency
Loyalty program breed cynicism when points feel arbitrary or opaque. Every interaction — earning, redeeming, tracking expiry — needed to be legible.
Noir
#292A2E
Slate
#555555
Haze
#F4F6F9
Clear
#FFFFFF
Gold
#A97C50
Deep Gold
#613D15
Gold Circle Status
Prodigy - Our new members are rewarded with this status
Creative Genius - First Milestone on completion of 2-4 projects levels up to this status
Legend - Next Milestone on completion of 5+ projects places you in this esteemed status.
APPROACH
Mapping the flows and building the system
The app had two distinct service types that needed different flows: reward services (points-based, self-serve checkout) and primary services (enquiry-only, requires human follow-up). Keeping these coherent within one cart was a key design challenge.
Reward redemption flow
1
Browse Rewards
Services tab, Redeem view
2
Select service
Detail sheet, enter project name
3
Add to Cart
Services added
to cart
4
Review Order
Adjust quantities, check total redemption points
5
Confirm
Order receipt, CX follow-up
Service enquiry flow
1
Browse Earn Services
Sound, VFX, Colour, QC
2
Fill Enquiry Form
Service type, project, start date, scope
3
Add to Cart
Sits alongside reward items(if added)
4
Review Order
Enquiry badge vs point cost clearly separated
5
Pending Confirmation
Admin reviews, notifies client
Earn Service Flow
Redeem Service Flow
KEY DECISIONS
Recognition is the product—not just the reward.
The system celebrates long-term partnerships through status, language, and thoughtful moments of delight, making loyalty feel personal instead of transactional.
Status needs to feel earned,
not just described.
The tier system (Prodigy → Creative Genius → Gold Circle → Legend) uses film-world language deliberately. Producers respond to cinematic framing — it makes the program feel like it belongs to their world.
The member card is a relationship signal.
A physical-card-style gold member card —
not just a digital screen — gives members something to feel proud of. It communicates that Knack values them beyond a transaction number.
Producers think in projects, not services.
The app needed to anchor every interaction to a project name — the way producers actually organize their work. Every service redemption, every enquiry, every activity log entry is project-tagged.
Reward services are not the same as a shopping cart.
Unlike e-commerce, these services require human coordination after checkout. I designed the confirmation screen to set the right expectation: "A Customer Experience Executive will reach out to you soon."
Transparency builds loyalty, not just points.
Activity logs broken down by project, service, and month make it easy for producers to understand exactly what their engagement has been worth. Opaque loyalty programmes breed distrust.
Harish Ram
8657
Creative Genius
Knack
Gold Circle
Knack Gold Circle
“Sandya quickly understood the complexities of our business and translated them into a product that felt simple and intuitive. She brought clarity to the product direction and worked closely with us to turn an early idea into a developer-ready MVP.”
HARISH RAM
Co-Founder, Knack Studios
KEY TAKEAWAYS
What I learnt from
this project
Domain language matters enormously.
Using film-world terminology (production names, project-centric thinking, cinematic tier names) made the product feel native rather than generic. Loyalty UX that ignores its industry context always
feels off.
Mixed checkout flows need a visual hierarchy that explains itself.
When reward items and enquiry items share a cart, the design has to communicate the difference without a user needing to read anything. Badge, cost field, and CTA patterns do that work.
AI-generated imagery is a creative tool, not a shortcut.
Midjourney gave me the ability to art-direct an entire visual catalogue — with cinematic specificity, at speed, without a photography budget. The quality of the output came from the quality of the prompting and the clarity of the creative direction behind it.
Edge cases are the product.
The insufficient-points error, the expiry nudge, the mixed-order receipt — these moments are where the brand either earns or loses trust. I treated each one as carefully as the happy path.
Raga sandya Kesavan
rkesav94@gmail.com
Linkedin I Resume