Hearth

The brief.

Hearth is a small community of slow-cooking writers who publish one recipe a week. They wanted an iOS app that would feel like a printed weekly column instead of a recipe feed — one recipe in front of you, the rest a swipe away.

The approach.

The home screen is the recipe of the week — full-bleed photo, serif title, a single Save button. Past weeks live in a quiet archive accessible by a small calendar in the corner. There is no infinite feed; there is no algorithmic ranking; there is no comments section.

The outcome.

App store rating settled at 4.8 in the third month and has stayed there. Subscriber retention is twice what the team's previous web product had at the same point. Most users open the app once on Sunday morning and not again for the week, which is exactly the cadence the editorial team wanted.