Chariot Energy

A great website is borne out of a strong mission and a powerful brand. For Chariot Energy, a solar power company, the mission was undeniable but the brand was in its infancy at project kick-off. Due to the timing, we started creating medium fidelity prototypes while the Butler Bros, an Austin branding agency, got to work on building their identity.

Fast prototyping

Normally we create medium fidelity designs for only the first few pages of a website then transition to full color. On this project, though, since we knew a full brand identity was coming, we decided to lay out every page in grayscale with placeholder imagery while the branding team did their thing. This was the only way we’d be able to keep our timelines and hit the aggressive launch date.

Let there be color

We were kept in the loop during the brand development, but there were always multiple concepts in consideration. It was more than a month into our own process that we found out the final name and visual guidelines we’d be working with. That said, applying color, motif, and imagery to our grayscale designs was a breath of fresh air. The bold color scheme, inspired by different shades of sun and sky, really brought the designs to life.

(Drag or swipe left/right on the images below to see more layouts.)

Easy sign ups

One of the more critical components of the site is the customer sign up flow. Working with a third party integration, we made sure to keep the process as streamlined as possible. We researched shopping cart experiences from divergent industries and synthesized the best practices into a three-step flow that creates momentum right up to the finish line. Less friction = more sign ups.

Post-launch Results