Case Study
Hypergiant
Conversion of ultra-complex, multi layered design
When Hypergiant went out of stealth mode they needed a fast and precise conversion of their intentionally complex, multi layered web design.
Hypergiant’s brand identity is based on the idea of “retro-futurism”
Hypergiant Co-Founders: Ben Lamm, John Fremont and Will Womble
Applied Sciences: one of the Hypergiant’s divisions
Case studies mix up open and classified content
Hypergiant was featured in many national and local publications
Project
Client
Hypergiant is a company with focus on pragmatic AI solutions. It has three divisions:
Hypergiant Space Age Solutions division works with Fortune 500 companies to solve their real life problems with custom AI solutions.
Hypergiant Applied Sciences division develops and tests their own AI products based on experience from working on industry-specific AI solutions.
Hypergiant Ventures invests in promising new AI startups.
Brief
Hypergiant’s Founder and CEO, Ben Lamm, came up with a bold brand identity for the company based on the idea of “retro-futurism”. It mixes up vintage imagery and typefaces, with a loud and proud brand voice resulting in an ambitious, thought provoking and mysterious brand.
The new website design was intentionally cluttered, ultra-complex and often times misleading. Combined with a tight deadline of 3 weeks, it didn’t seem like a relaxing job.
Working on other Ben’s projects like Conversable in the past, Xfive was ready to take up the challenge and deliver a precise conversion on time so Hypergiant can take off towards its bright future.
Solution
Cooperation Model
Hourly billing as designs were delivered gradually over the course of project.
Team
- 1 x Project Manager
- 1 x Front-end Developer
- 2 x WordPress Developer
- 1 x Quality Controller
Methodology
Because of the fixed scope and timeline the waterfall model was chosen for the project.
Tools
- Skype
- Slack
- Basecamp
- GitLab
Technologies
- ITCSS
- WordPress
- Timber
- Chisel
Timeframe
3 weeks
Results
- Meeting a tight deadline – clever usage of our available resources and our custom WordPress development framework Chisel allowed us to meet the tight deadline.
- Ready for an extensive press coverage – the new website was a cornerstone during the initial buzz around the Hypergiant launch, with more than 30 national and local publications reporting about the company and referring to its site.
- Featured in Communication Arts – original Maven Creative design and Xfive’s execution earned a feature spot in Communication Arts, under the Webpicks category
- Site of the Day, Awwwards – the website won Awwwards’ Site of the Day on May 25, 2018
- Addressing client’s concerns – we were ready to provide a sophisticated solution for the redacted content on the website, but degraded to more laborious workaround to make such content 100% unreadable
Power in details
Great work is defined by its details. One such detail is a hover effect of mysterious Division 0004 that appears on the Hypergiant home page. The background image is loaded through canvas and certain pixels are transformed on hover with an open source effect based on three.js library. The result is a small but powerful detail which adds to the mystery of classified information.
I’m happy to see how the idea of “retro-futurism” materialized in our website which was developed by Xfive in just 3 weeks. This allowed us to meet the press release date and gives Hypergiant a striking identity, which is largely recognizable by clients and press.
Founder & CEO
