Hughes Car Wash & Petroleum
Summary
Hughes Car Wash & Petroleum is a chain of car washes and gas stations scattered around Edmonton and Spruce Grove. Hughes was already a client of Pixel Army, but it had been many years since we had made their site and it had become gradually less useful to customers. The Hughes website targeted two primary audiences: individuals looking to fuel or wash their vehicles, and companies looking to get fuel, washes, and other services, such as garbage collection, on wholesale pricing for their fleets. To appeal to the individuals, I designed a "Locations Near You" section right on the homepage so users can find the closest stations and the services they offer without the need to navigate to another page. Companies needs can vary significantly, so the Pixel Army team assisted Hughes in creating targetted content and navigation to aid companies in locating what they were after. The website also needed to account for a third user audience: those seeking employment with Hughes. The contact page is where the needs of all three audiences converge most frequently, and I designed it with this in mind.
The Biggest Challenge
Hughes is a well-known brand in its communities, but its branding largely lacks visual elements or themes from past marketing campaigns. This meant I would largely have to "blue sky" any new visual elements I introduced, while keeping close to the style of the several decades-old brand. I opted for a subtle approach, using gradients, a "construction stripe" pattern, and cutting out photos of their vehicles and tanks. After internal feedback and minimal tweaking, we sent it off to Hughes who happily approved the design with no changes.
My Favourite Part
The little orange link boxes on the homepage. When you hover over them on a desktop view, the pictures pop out to the left.