Cooc
Modernizing Recruitment Infrastructure for Healthcare Agencies
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COOC is an avant-garde private members club in Central London, born from the bold vision of uniting art, music, and surrealist nightlife into a single immersive experience. Curated under the creative direction of The Mandrake, COOC is more than a club—it’s a sanctuary of eccentricity, performance, and liberated expression.
The digital challenge? Build a platform that not only reflects COOC’s surreal, luxury-fueled aesthetic but also operates as a functional membership management system—integrated with modern access control, payment automation, and digital ID solutions.
"We needed something instant, but luxury. Mysterious, but modern. An immersive entry to another world."
Originally scoped as a simple brand-focused landing page, the project pivoted rapidly when the client requested a fully functioning membership platform just weeks after launch. They needed the ability to register and manage members, automate payment collection, and issue digital Apple Wallet passes for club access—all while maintaining a luxury feel.
This pivot posed a serious challenge. Ideally, the solution would have been a native app or ERP-style dashboard, custom-built for long-term scale. But the client needed something immediate. With a short timeline and limited technical bandwidth on their end, we were pushed to reimagine what was possible using WordPress.
The challenge was to honor COOC’s surreal, hedonistic tone within the constraints of WordPress. Typography was bold and playful—mixing serif elegance with glitchy contrast. The color palette leaned into deep hues: violet, noir, silver, blood orange. Content was layered and collage-like, mimicking the dreamlike aesthetic of the venue itself. The registration area was visually distinct—presenting it as an initiation ritual, not a form fill.
Members begin by registering through a custom-designed Divi form, which is captured by MemberPress. Each submission is held in review, pending admin approval via the New User Approve plugin.
Members begin by registering through a custom-designed Divi form, which is captured by MemberPress. Each submission is held in review, pending admin approval via the New User Approve plugin.
Once approved, the system auto-enrolls the member into their respective plan—standard, inner circle, or otherwise—handled by MemberPress with recurring billing.
Members begin by registering through a custom-designed Divi form, which is captured by MemberPress. Each submission is held in review, pending admin approval via the New User Approve plugin.
Zapier sends a branded welcome email with a pass download link. Admins receive notifications for every new approval, ensuring operational visibility.
While the WordPress solution worked, it came with major tradeoffs:
These limitations are acceptable in the short-term, but a custom-built app (like Soho House’s) would better reflect the lifestyle-led ambition of COOC:
The COOC platform bridges the gap between luxury club membership and experimental digital design. It was built under pressure—but with intention—to reflect the daring spirit of the brand while laying the groundwork for a more expansive digital future.
From a UX/UI perspective, the site was crafted to evoke exclusivity and sophistication while keeping the user journey clean and intuitive. WordPress allowed us to move quickly, leveraging existing plugins to deliver booking integrations, membership functionality, and content control—all within a compressed timeline.
However, while WordPress proved to be a solid tool for launching a functional and visually branded website, the project exposed its limitations as a foundation for more complex or bespoke web applications. As COOC’s digital ambitions evolved, we encountered friction around:
These roadblocks revealed that plugins alone aren't enough when you're trying to build something truly custom—especially when the digital experience is a core extension of the brand, not just a static site.
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