Rayo
Building an approachable brand for solar energy solution that makes solar energy accessible for homeowners in Switzerland.
Brand Identity, Visual Design, Workshops
Building the Rayo brand from its identity
Branding is the process of creating and disseminating the brand name, its qualities and its personality. Branding could be applied to the entire corporate identity, individual products and services, or concepts.
Ultimately, a brand connects beliefs and behaviour.
We have completed a few exercises to see our beliefs and behaviour, and I have collected them here to remember why we exist and how we want to exist in the world.
“Why do we exist in the world?”
We exist because we have identified a problem: Getting solar panels is expensive and maintaining them is hard work. There are high upfront costs, often unexpected maintenance costs and uncertainty about whom to turn to for help.
And who are we talking about? Single-family homeowners in Switzerland who have bought a house and want to generate their electricity.
The future runs on renewable energy, and everyone can be a part of it.
Creating the Rayo brand before the name
After aligning on the brand identity as a team I worked on creating the brand’s visual language. A big learning from user research was that people experience buying a solar solution as confusing and technical. Websites were often overwhelming and made users feel like they needed to know more than they did.
My goal was to create a visual brand that made users feel welcome and supported along their journey to switch to sustainable energy to power their homes.
The challenge: we could not settle on a name for our company for two months, so I had to craft a visual identity before we knew the name.
Typography
Colours
Patterns and circles
Brand elements
Inspiration from science and art.
'Atoms' were the patterns I extracted from the world to apply as brand elements with different transparencies.
A general guide is that the photography should include plenty of light (solar company) and human elements showing what solar energy gives people access to.
Atoms applied to images as an additional way to lift the elements.
Logo
Instead of designing full pages, we focussed on designing a component library that would form the building blocks of the pages.
This saved a lot of time since the content of the website was still in development after we began designing. The challenge was that components should be flexible enough to be able to operate in different parts of the website, but they should also communicate hierarchy.
Rayo logo on a light background.
Rayo logo on a dark background.
Branding goes beyond the visual
We start with our brand values which are guiding principles that we should live by, both as a brand and as employees. It should come across in everything we do and with everyone we work with.
Brand values guide how a company operates—including where it sources its products, how items are delivered to customers, and how employees are treated. It’s how our customers feel and perceive our company.
Rayo’s brand values
-
Customer-centric
We are customer-centric when we deliver products, services and experiences, by prioritizing their needs first.
-
Transparent
We remain transparent about our processes and prices - even when it’s hard.
-
Trustworthy
We are trustworthy and reliable because we always show up and deliver on time, and communicate when we cannot.
-
Eco-conscious
We are eco-conscious and consider the impact on the environment with every choice we make.
-
Supportive
We support our customers by always being available to listen and help throughout the entire journey with us.
Our voice and tone
-
Honest
We tell it like it is
-
Friendly
We’re empathetic and helpful
-
Sincere
We mean what we say
Implementing across all touch points: print and digital
I designed and implemented the Rayo brand across all our customer-facing touchpoints along our extended user journey. This ranged from:
Pre-sales: where we focused on driving traffic from social media channels to our website to convert using our configurator;
Sales: from becoming a lead to engaging in our 2-month sales process and attending sales pitches, organise site visits, getting a brochure and a final contract;
Post-sales: including customer support, communicating our referral programme, and our mobile application to manage and optimise their solar energy.
Touchpoints includes website, sales materials, social media, brochures, print materials, merchandise and the My Rayo app.
Different mobile screens from the website, configurator and the app.
Rayo business cards.
Card designs for the website.
Rayo website homepage.
My Rayo app on desktop.
Social media assets.
Visit the website
Feel free to visit the Rayo website and the My Rayo app.