Site Design Preview
About the Me2Solar Product
Lightweight, portable solar panels for charging a variety of small electronics which everyone uses today on a daily basis: Mobile Phone, Laptop, iPhone/Smart Phone, portable media player (i.e. iPod or similar) and much more.
Our daily lives have started to revolve around these devices and now we find it hard to do without them. When they run out of power, it puts us into a bind. Having one small, portable device that is capable of charging most of these devices fast using the power of the sun is not only good for the environment, it’s a smart and practical solution.
What Makes Me2Solar Different
Our products differ from competitors by their small footprint, their high quality (made in U.S.A.), their ability deliver a charge even in low light conditions and being more powerful despite their smaller footprint, thus charging devices faster.
Because of this we required a different approach to creating and designing a website which would explain and define our products to interested customers and potential buyers.
What We Looked For
We required a new logo for the entire product line and a website that was in 2 parts:
- An informative part of the website which would, among other things, explain in detail the functions and superiority of the products,have lots of nice high resolution pictures, and have links to testimonials, support and press releases.
- The other part would be a web shop which would be seamlessly be integrated with a partner logistics warehouse which was capable of receiving orders from the web shop automatically and correctly fulfill them without any other input anywhere in the process. This way we could focus on marketing and the customer’s needs without having to spend time with logistics.
Working With Scratchmedia
Scratchmedia delivered on every part. First they listened to what it was we wanted even though we really didn’t know what or how we wanted it done. All we knew was we wanted the website to look new, to look “Web 2.0”which is we realized is a term that is overused.
They took our basic ideas and formed a website concept that seemed to be what we had in mind. It was slick, easy to navigate which was another big requirement, and versatile.
The entire website used the Magento Open-Source web shop system as its backbone, which is a powerful tool, if sometimes a little frustrating to use at the beginning for non-IT people.
However, the Scratchmedia Team was always very helpful with any problems that arose or any questions that needed to be answered, even after the website was finished.
They quickly got us familiar with the Magento back-end and its different functions as well as how to easily use the CMS functions to edit different pages all together.
The Scratch team were always very communicative, keeping us up to date with progress and overcoming any problems with ease.
Overall, it was a very good experience for us. If we ever need another website done (which is more than likely) we shall definitely turn to Scratchmedia first.
The Designer’s Perspective
by Ben Hunt, Principal Consultant, Scratchmedia
Getting the Me2Solar account was a perfect fit for our team. The product resonates with what Scratchmedia is about. It’s very modern, using cutting-edge materials, and it’s certainly sexy, yet it’s packaged in a way that makes it genuinely useful for end users.
That’s how we view our web sites. Visually appealing, for sure, but ultimately really easy to use and practical.
That synergy meant we found working with Matt and his team at Me2Solar really pleasurable and easy. They knew they wanted a site that emphasised the modern design of the Aurora and Xpedition portable solar chargers. It had to work on a slick e-commerce platform (we selected Magento). And the overall result had to be simple and convenient.
We enjoyed developing ideas for the branding, combining energy, sun, and power. The final logo (on the left, below) combines a sun image with a power level meter.
The rest of the web page design went incredibly smoothly. Once we had settled on the main layout, we focused on crafting a soft and strong user interface, using new custom icons to draw attention to the key features.
Producing the Site
by Dan Johnson, Production Specialist, Scratchmedia
Translating the new design into a fully-functioning e-commerce site involved slicing up the graphics, and slotting them into a customised Magento theme.
We then used the CMS functionality of Magento to separate the informative side of the site from the online store, giving the Me2Solar team complete control over the web site content.
Finally, we also customised the payment gateway templates to fit with the design, ensuring a seamless shopping experience for Me2Solar’s customers.
The view of a site being visually appealing is spot on, but as mentioned it must be easy to use and practical as well for it to be successful. This is what makes the difference between an excellent visual piece of design and a successful looking and working website.
If a client knows exactly what they want for their business, this makes the designing and overall outcome so much more effective. Added to this success was the choice of e-commerce platform being Magento, an excellent choice. Keeping the end result simple and convenient also played a part in this success, as this would tie in very nicely with the desired message of the products being simple to buy and use.
The final logo chosen is by far the best choice. The combination of sun and power, along with colour use and simple typography produced in such a simple yet very effective way creates an impressive piece of branding. Finally, using icons for key features of the webpage is a great way of drawing attention to these important areas. With the added effect of a drop shadow, this will allow the user to access the main areas of the business at ease. Overall a fantastic site!
Hi guys,
Really like this design, especially the logo and icons.
Is the shopping cart a custom built solution or using a 3rd party cart? Looks really good.
Why did you decide to use a pop-up window though for the image views? Kinda old-skool.
Hi David,
Thanks for your comment.
The shopping cart is an open source kit called Magento. We use this for most of our e-commerce projects due to it’s comprehensive bundle of features and template support. The ‘pop-up’ window for the image enlargement is standard with Magento so we might look at changing that for the client.
Jimmy
Scratchmedia Ltd
Hey Hannah,
Great to hear from you and thank you for your positive feedback on the me2solar project. We really enjoyed working it and we’re very pleased with the outcome
Jimmy
Scratchmedia Ltd