Website design defines new brand direction
We recently worked on a website design project with dJoule (pronounced “jewel”), a start-up district energy advisory company that accelerates the turnkey modernization, renewal, and growth of district, campus, and industrial energy infrastructure. While dJoule had a memorable name (district + energy) and logo, its brand look and feel and voice needed to better reflect the company’s leadership and expertise.
Developing a content strategy
As part of our kick-off meeting, we worked to define the initial and future phases of the website design. As a start-up, the plan was to start with a long scrolling page to include information about the company, what they do, why they do it, leadership bios, featured alliances and projects, as well as a contact form.
By planning ahead, we anticipated how the website could grow and evolve from a long scrolling landing page to a full-blown web site using the same navigation.
Standing out from the competition
Before diving into website design, we conducted competitive research to evaluate the branding and messaging on other district energy development company websites. Most of the companies featured photos of buildings and iconography to convey green development. Through this research, we identified an opportunity for dJoule to stand out conceptually through one of two unique creative directions—by taking an illustrative approach or by using people-focused imagery.
Creative website design concepts to choose from
We presented two creative directions for the client to choose from—both mapping back to the approved strategy.
Option 1: District Energy with Scale
An illustrative approach using isometric stock illustrations.
Option 2: Powering Communities
A community approach using images featuring people and copy that connect the dots with district energy.
The isometric illustration style of website design conveys the concept of district energy and while we used stock illustrations, we customized each to showcase key elements of district energy networks from underground piping to green living rooftops. To complement the design, we used pillar statements and friendly headlines. The “navigation” at the top are anchor links to the content areas on the page. Over time, these links will link out to pages on the website that dive deeper into each topic area.
Selected direction
