Built for the street
Brand mockup: the vertical and horizontal logos on a sidewalk flag and a lamppost banner.
PLATFORM BUILD / MESSAGING, BRAND, WEB AND CRM
Harlem Is Poppin' came to JFP Studios with a landing page and an events calendar. In 90 days, we built the full platform behind it. That meant the message, the brand, a Webflow website and a backend that sends every inquiry to the right place.
At a glance
The challenge
Three Audiences, One Front Door
What we did
How We Built the Platform From the Ground Up
The result
A Working Platform in 90 Days
01 / THE BUSINESS CONTEXT
Harlem Is Poppin' is a cultural platform led by Danielle Lewis-McLaurin and Kimberly Moore. It helps visitors find Harlem's businesses, events and stories, and it helps local owners get found.
With the 2026 World Cup bringing visitors to New York, the engagement had one goal: make Harlem Is Poppin' fundable, searchable and ready for World Cup traffic.
When we started, the platform had a landing page and an events calendar. It still needed:
02 / THE CHALLENGE
Harlem Is Poppin' serves three groups at once. Each one needed a clear message, a clear path and a clear next step.
THE CHALLENGE IN BRIEF
Every one of those paths had to be built from scratch. Interest was already coming in, and the existing setup could not keep up if it doubled.
03 / THE CREATIVE RESPONSE
We built in a fixed order. Messaging came first, because every page, form and email depends on knowing who you are talking to. Brand came next, then the website, then the backend that runs behind it.
WHAT WE DID / KEY DECISIONS
We wrote the message with the PEACE messaging framework. Danielle and Kimberly scored each rewrite from 1 to 10 until it was ready to lock. The final message includes:
With the message locked, every later piece had a script to follow.
The brand turns the message into something people recognize on a street banner or a phone screen. The core pieces:
We then tested the system on real-world formats, including street banners, apparel and event screens.
We set up Webflow and had a live site on harlemispoppin.com 10 days after onboarding. The full site soft-launched on February 17, 2026, in time for a partnership meeting.
The site runs on seven content collections, including Businesses, Events, Curated Guides and Campaigns. The team can add a new business or event without building a new page. World Cup 2026 is the first campaign.
Member businesses join one of three tiers: On The Map, Front Row and Poppin Picks. We set the listing order so paid tiers get more visibility while the directory stays useful to visitors.
We also wrote search and social preview copy for 12 pages and connected five analytics tools, including Google Analytics and Search Console.
This is where the platform does its quiet work. We built the backend in GoHighLevel and connected it to the site:
Every team alert lists the next step, so Danielle and Kimberly know what to do with each new lead. We also set up branded email on the harlemispoppin.com domain and wrote a standard operating procedure for adding business listings the same way every time.
THE BRAND PLATFORM / STRATEGY & IDENTITY
Harlem Is Poppin' helps people find their way around Harlem. The identity was designed to do the same job.
Two symbols always appear together. The gold Beacon Spark stands for cultural energy. The red Waypoint Diamond marks a verified Harlem location. Together they say, “Discover the energy of Harlem here.”
The guidelines set exact spacing for the mark, four logo lockups and a list of words to use and avoid. Any designer or volunteer can produce on-brand work from them.
04 / SEE THE WORK
A closer look at the creative assets, systems, and experiences developed for this project.
Brand mockup: the vertical and horizontal logos on a sidewalk flag and a lamppost banner.
Brand mockup: the stacked logo on a T-shirt, with the Beacon Spark as a back-collar detail.
Brand mockup: the logo and primary tagline on an event stage screen.
05 / THE RESULTS
From onboarding on January 16 to a live site on January 26, 2026.
Each one tags, routes and confirms new contacts in GoHighLevel.
Messaging, brand, website and backend in one 90-day engagement.
By the February 25 mid-project review, the intake forms and team alerts were live. The plan for the next phase was to launch the Up Top Is Poppin campaign, host the first events and bring on a first group of 10 to 25 businesses.
A platform is only as strong as its weakest layer. When one team builds the message, brand, website and backend in order, every click leads somewhere useful.
Four layers: messaging, brand identity, website and backend. For Harlem Is Poppin', that meant a locked message, a full brand system, a Webflow site and a GoHighLevel CRM with forms, automations and payment links.
Every page, form and email depends on knowing who you serve and what you promise. Locking the message first saves rework later.
Harlem Is Poppin' had a live site 10 days after onboarding and a full soft launch about a month later. The whole engagement ran 90 days.
Webflow for the website, GoHighLevel for forms, automations and CRM pipelines, and Stripe for membership payments.
Yes. Businesses, events and guides live in content collections, so the team can add new entries without building new pages.
Dates and counts come from the JFP Studios project records for January to March 2026.
LET'S BUILD AROUND YOUR NEXT OBJECTIVE
JFP Studios builds the message, brand, website and backend for organizations that need more than a few pages. We build each layer in order, so the whole system works together from launch.
Book a strategy call
.png)
