Sepi Travel Platform Redesign

Sepi Travel is a Black-owned agency in Los Angeles founded by a well-known Entertainment Tonight host, and its site was a bulky WordPress build that did not work on a phone. I led a mobile-first redesign for African American heritage travel, running As-Is and To-Be workshops grounded in IBM Design Thinking and partnering with prominent Black travel influencers on trust and discovery. It shipped as a site, a native app direction and an MUI-based style guide, built alongside the front-end developers through launch.

The previous website was not mobile-friendly and ran on a WordPress backend that felt bulky and outdated. At the same time Sepi had completed a print branding refresh that needed to carry over online, including an expanded color palette and a proper style guide built on the MUI design system.

The Sepi engagement operated under a fixed budget and timeline inside an accelerator-style program. The core goal was a trustworthy, easy-to-use platform that surfaced historical places and made booking with trusted hosts feel simple.

I owned the design of the Sepi Travel platform: the information architecture, the interaction design, the high-fidelity desktop, mobile and native app screens and the MUI-based style guide. The call that shaped all of it was treating trusted hosts and their writing as the discovery engine rather than building another destination catalog.

I ran the As-Is and To-Be workshops that mapped what travelers and hosts each needed, then partnered with well-known Black travel influencers on the trust and discovery signals. I worked alongside the front-end developers through launch.

I started with As-Is and To-Be workshops grounded in IBM Design Thinking. These sessions mapped the current friction and the ideal future state for both travelers and hosts. From the workshops I produced flow charts for the main features, then moved into rough wireframes and a clickable prototype for early validation.

Once Sepi approved the clickable prototype I designed the higher-resolution desktop and mobile experiences along with a native app direction. Throughout the process well-known Black travel influencers contributed insights that shaped content hierarchy, trust signals and how destinations and host recommendations appeared.

The As-Is and To-Be workshops surfaced what each side needed. Travelers wanted easy discovery of historical places tied to a map and powered by trusted host articles, personalized recommendations, travel guides covering flights, stays, itineraries and group options, plus simple ways to reach their guides. Hosts wanted article and blog content tied directly to planned destinations, a full booking experience with recommendations and reviews, strong trust signals and tools to update travelers mid-trip.

One of the clearest decisions was to treat trusted hosts and their content as the primary discovery engine rather than a generic destination catalog. That choice put influencer voices and historical context at the center of the experience.

I also prioritized a mobile-first flow that ran research, learn, book and manage in one place, rather than bolting booking onto the old content-heavy structure. On the visual side I expanded the new brand palette and built a complete MUI style guide so the site would feel consistent with the print work already in market. Because the timeline was fixed I focused the first release on the highest-value traveler and host journeys instead of every possible secondary feature.

Partnering with well-known African American travel influencers early in the process proved especially valuable. Their input kept the design grounded in real trust and discovery behaviors instead of assumptions. The As-Is and To-Be workshops also created strong stakeholder alignment under a fixed budget and timeline. If I ran a similar heritage-focused travel project again I would bring a small group of actual travelers into prototype testing, so the recommendation and trust signals could be validated earlier against real booking hesitation.