Ideas, Art & Technology™
Designed in NYC. Built in Claude Code.
Rorra

Rorra

Rorra is the Porsche 911 of water filters. Precise, timeless, and built with purpose. Every detail reflects a pursuit of performance and proof, combining engineering-grade filtration with design that feels at home in any kitchen. It’s not just clean water, it’s confidence, beautifully delivered.

the Rorra Countertop System has the kind of quiet confidence you usually only see in good furniture or industrial audio gear. This was the foundation for everything to come.

Across the United States, one in ten homes still receives water through aging lead pipes.

Founders Jordi Hayes, Brian Keller, and Charlie Carlisle experienced local water contamination firsthand. After spending years working on a product to solve their real need, they teamed with Little Plains to bring it to market.

Over 95% of US water systems tested exceeded safe limits for at least 1 carcinogen, and most of the U.S. tap water delivery infrastructure was built in the early 1900's. and
Some of the initial sketches for Rorra's now iconic countertop system.

Inspired by the culture of engineering precision from Porsche, Audi and Dyson. Understated performance, precise, confident. The tone: black-and-white, serious, Ogilvy-era craft. Design cues from Apple, Leica, and Braun for modern tech warmth with timeless restraint.

These are swipes from our first moodboard exploring inspiration to inform the brand build out.

After many color tests and iterations, we paired clarity with tension, steel calm against signal color.

A simpler, cleaner aesthetic, like a premium tech product, that also focuses on transparency, and intelligence.

We wanted to convey a sense of seriousness, with also warm approachability.

The colors represent the purity of water, the industrial metals, and the warning system to convey the hidden dangers in much of the tap water systems.
In keeping with the brand's minimal, clean aesthetic, Instrument served as an elegant, no fuss font choice.
We explored design across the user journey; from a custom water report web application to beautiful packaging.
There is a refreshing energy as a throughline to Rorra, from the photography to UI.
When so much attention to detail and care is invested in a brand's core product, much of the design work is creating space for the hero item to breathe, and shine.

We applied Hemingway’s principles of short, active, human language across every touchpoint. Technical jargon became clear, confident statements that anyone can understand.

Copy is often an unsung hero of our (and many creative team's) work! We're really proud of the 'reducing' work that we do often to make copy easy to read and absorb. These are two great 'before and after' examples of just that.

Every Rorra product arrives like precision hardware - designed, documented, and tested to NSF standards.

We built the full packaging system: primary boxes, inserts, shipping protection, and printed owner’s manuals. The unboxing experience reinforces the brand promise: rigor, clarity, and calm from the first moment of contact.

We referenced blueprint dielines for the brand packaging, keeping in line with the engineering-centric ethos.

The full site and campaign launched late 2024, earning praise for its “engineered calm.” Press coverage and early customers echoed the balance of technical depth and emotional trust.

Our first and longest running website, Rorra.com is elevated, elegant, tells a compelling story, and has a calming sense of gravitas. We still maintain and manage it today.

The product page balances high-end design photography with clear data, third-party testing, vivid UGC, and concise explanations of every feature. Where the content was strong, we let it speak for itself, using negative space to highlight craftsmanship and credibility.

At Little Plains, we love working with founders who care about the details. Brian at Rorra exemplifies this. Every pixel, button, color, word is measured, considered, and tested. It's part of why almost two years later the site is still so strong, and harmonious.

We built an interactive Water Report that syncs directly with the EWG’s open-source water database, letting users enter their ZIP code to see real contaminants in their local supply.

The visuals were carefully translated from raw scientific data into a format that’s fast, legible, and intuitive for everyday readers.

Each report shows total contaminants, exceedances, and top offenders with simple color logic and ratios, turning dense environmental data into something clear, actionable, and shareable.

We tapped into the EWG's API to create a localized and customized interface to see what contaminants are in your water, and what you should know about them.
We invested time to ensure every output from the EWG's API was understandable and helpful to a site visitor, not a scientist.

After the success of the Countertop System, Rorra expanded its technology into the shower. We showcased every detail through custom scroll modules, revealing the internal filtration system, ergonomic jet design, and refined proportions.

We're obsessed with motion. Getting to do this sequence of an scroll-triggered exploding view of the showerhead was extremely fun and ultimately really helpful to see all the craftsmanship and components.

In 2025, Rorra became an official partner of Dr. Andrew Huberman, neuroscientist and host of The Huberman Lab Podcast, one of the most influential voices in health and science today. Huberman had been a long-time Rorra user, and the partnership made that connection official.

The result was a seamless funnel from podcast listener to product experience, bringing scientific credibility and massive reach to the brand.

It was an honor to carefully integrate Dr. Andrew Huberman and his brand's language into the Rorra world.

For Black Friday 2025, we unveiled the Black Countertop System, a limited-edition colorway designed as a tribute to modern minimalism.

Once you establish a strong brand foundation, you can have fun exploring new variations, limited editions, and special drops - like for the release of the black Countertop System.

Rorra proves that design and science can move as one, making something as ordinary as water feel extraordinary.
See the full experience at rorra.com.

Credits

Ann-Marie Sebastian
Product Manager
Patty Reyes
Project Management
Raymond Arevalo
Web Development
Sanghee Han
UI/UX Designer
Nicholas Green
UI/UX Designer
Marek Czyz
UI/UX Designer
Andrew Janik
Brand Designer
Elliot Robinson
Motion Director
Andrew Ettinger
Brand Strategist & Copywriter
Dmitri Vassilev
Web Developer
Emmett Shine
Creative Director
Alex Leiphart
Digital Design Direction
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