Digital Design for Hydro

Leading visual design for Hydro's digital transformation, creating a scalable design system that reflects sustainability leadership and supports growing business complexity.

Client: Halogen AS + Hydro

My role: Senior Lead Designer

Team: UX Designers, Content Team, Dev Team

Timeline: 2019 – 2021

Services: Digital Design, Design Systems, Art Direction

Modernizing a Global Industrial Leader

Hydro needed to modernize its digital presence to reflect strategic transformation, sustainability leadership, and growing business complexity. As the business expanded, the website grew from 3 to 5 navigation levels, creating deep complexity that required a structured system.

As Senior Lead Visual Designer, I led the renewal of Hydro's website from 2017, launching in 2019 with continued design development through 2021. My role centered on translating Hydro's brand platform into a cohesive digital identity, creating clarity from complexity through systematic design thinking.

The Design Challenge

Hydro's digital presence needed to serve multiple demanding stakeholders from investors and sustainability teams to HR recruitment and external PR advisors while maintaining clarity for global users navigating increasingly complex business areas.

As senior lead visual designer, I needed to create a flexible design system that could accommodate diverse content types (History of Hydro, How It's Made, Brazil operations, ESG reporting) while ensuring visual consistency and scalability. The navigation architecture alone presented significant complexity as the business expanded.

My Design Approach

I applied a Double Diamond process, balancing discovery and alignment with focused execution. My approach centered on designing for clarity, not ego, maintaining collaborative relationships while leading visual direction and systematic implementation.

I Led

  • Visual direction and digital art direction

  • Design system and component library

  • UI systemization and consistency

  • Template design and layout systems

Collaborated With

  • UX team for IA and user flows

  • Content team for storytelling

  • Dev team for implementation

  • Brand and stakeholder groups

Engagement and Buy-In Strategy

Visual Communication First: I visualized everything early, sharing low-fidelity prototypes to gather feedback without over-investing. Used visual principles to explain design decisions around accessibility, grid systems, and hierarchy.

Brand to Digital Translation: A critical part of my role was translating Hydro's brand identity into a cohesive digital expression. This required deep understanding of the brand platform and careful interpretation of how brand principles—typography, color, tone, visual language, would work in interactive, responsive digital environments while maintaining brand integrity.

Structured Collaboration: Led weekly sprint check-ins with design and dev teams for continuous alignment. Regular touchpoints with stakeholders across market, digital operations, sustainability, and IT helped navigate diverse needs and constraints.

Technical Translation: Worked closely with developers to translate the design system into scalable components, ensuring accessibility, performance, and visual fidelity. Created comprehensive Figma libraries and implementation guidelines.

Outcomes & Impact

Despite significant technical challenges including a cyber attack, the project successfully delivered a modern digital presence aligned with Hydro's brand platform. The modular design system enabled scalable growth while improving navigation clarity for global users.

3 years

Continuous design development from initial launch through iterative improvements

5 levels

Navigation depth managed through structured IA and mega menu system

Multiple

Content types supported: History, How It's Made, ESG, Insights, Sub-brands

Global

Stakeholders served across markets, sustainability, IR, HR, and IT

Key Achievements

Successfully launched despite cyber attack disruption. Created intuitive navigation for complex global organization. Delivered modular design system enabling ongoing scalable growth. Established clearer storytelling on sustainability and business areas through systematic design approach.

Previous

Case Study: Once Ocean Driving Sustainability of Our Shared Ocean Future
Next

“Gastromic Butoh” supper club