Responses by CōLab.

Background: Carbon capture technology is one of the most promising innovations in the fight against climate change. But can we scale it quickly enough to save us all? The Deep Sky team is up for the challenge. The team is building a carbon capture facility the size of a small city in partnership with Canadian government officials.

To assemble a stellar team and pursue critical partnerships, Deep Sky needed to develop a digital presence. So, it partnered with us at CōLab, a creative studio that specializes in startup marketing and design, to help design its first company website. Our goal was to design an inspiring homepage that captured the company’s bold ambitions while making it feel attainable to prospective partners and investors.

Design core: We designed the website with very minimal branding to ensure it grows with Deep Sky as its brand evolves. Still, the website couldn’t be purely informational—Deep Sky’s leadership wanted it to evoke a feeling of awe and wonder, harkening back to the days of early space travel. Our UX and motion designers worked closely with Deep Sky creative director Carl Robichaud to explore many art directions, color palettes and graphic elements. Together, we honed in on the right tone: futuristic, optimistic and evocative.

The website had many different content modules, but we didn’t want it to feel dense. We used subtle interactions to serve content in a way that felt fluid and digestible to the reader while also creating a more unique layout.

Deep Sky’s new website is designed to grow with the company. It offers an agile system that can easily expand to more pages, ones that will be brought to life with the right imagery and subtle animations. It strikes the perfect balance between form and function.

Challenges: Our job was to distill a complicated problem and an even more complex solution into short, digestible beats. We pored over decks and documents to understand the reasons behind the carbon collapse and the technology that made Deep Sky possible. Then, our writer worked hand-in-hand with Deep Sky’s leadership to nail the information architecture and copy on each page.

Navigation structure: To accommodate future content growth, our design strategy focuses on creating a scalable navigation system. Initially, the site had only four subpages, but as the content expands, more pages are being added. To ensure a seamless user experience, we suggest limiting the navigation links to a maximum of seven. Beyond this threshold, we can implement a hamburger menu. The navigation design aims to optimize space for showcasing facility images. We utilized pill shapes and a sticky layout positioned at the center top to ensure user engagement. The floating pill navigation contributes to a modern, lightweight and innovative brand aesthetic, aligning with our brand identity.

Technology: We used WebFlow for the implementation and Lottie for various animations.