AES — Eighteen websites, one system
Eighteen country sites with eighteen navigations, unified into one adaptable digital ecosystem for a Fortune 500 energy company — global brand, local flexibility.
Eighteen regional websites across fourteen countries unified under one scalable design system.
[ The problem ]
AES's digital presence was spread across eighteen country-level websites, each with its own navigation, content structure and visual style. Investors and customers could not find consistent information. Regional teams had no adaptable standard to build on. The global brand's impact was being diluted by the very sites meant to carry it.
[ Goals ]
Simplicity — navigation and content an investor, customer, partner or candidate can use without a map. Cohesion — one reusable design system in place of eighteen visual styles. Adaptability — a framework regional teams can flex without breaking the global brand. Audience clarity — four audiences, one architecture, no dead ends.
Approach
Stakeholder sessions with AES teams came first, to align on what investors, customers, partners and talent each needed from the same site. Then the audit: eighteen sites analysed for navigation, content structure and visual drift, with the findings sorted into what worked, what needed fixing, open questions and ideas. Content strategy turned that into five pillars and a global-versus-local rule for every page. Information architecture and low-fidelity wireframes mapped hierarchy, flow and priority for the key templates before any visual design, so the visual phase could argue about craft rather than content. The design system closed the loop — modern, accessible, responsive, and documented for the regional teams who would own it.
[ Scope and constraints ]
[ The work ]
The surfaces.
Eighteen sites, one audit
See the whole estate at once — what worked, what did not, and what every region was quietly solving on its own.
Audited eighteen country sites for navigation, content structure and visual drift, then ran stakeholder sessions with AES teams to sort findings into what worked, what needed fixing, open questions and ideas.
A shared picture of the problem the whole team could point at, and the case for one system instead of eighteen.
Content pillars
Give four audiences — investors, customers, partners, talent — one content model they can all find themselves in.
Consolidated the estate's content into five pillars with defined messaging under each, and mapped where every existing page belonged — or did not.
A content strategy every region inherits, so the global story stays consistent while local pages stay local.
Information architecture
Turn the pillars into a navigable hierarchy before a single page was designed.
Built the page hierarchy and content priorities section by section, annotated for the regional teams who would own them.
One sitemap that works for a global headquarters and a single-country subsidiary without changing shape.
Wireframes
Get alignment on structure and priority while changes were still cheap.
Low-fidelity wireframes for the key templates — home, about, solutions, projects, investors — with navigation flows and content priorities marked.
Layouts agreed on hierarchy and flow before any visual design, so the visual phase argued about craft, not content.
Design system
Make consistency the default rather than a review comment.
A modern, accessible system — type, colour, components, responsive templates — documented so that a regional team could ship a compliant page without a designer in the room.
Eighteen visual styles replaced by one system that regional teams build from instead of around.
Project pages
Let a solar farm in Kentucky and a wind farm in Chile tell the same kind of story with the same components.
Designed the project template around the numbers that matter — capacity, homes served, status — with imagery and narrative slots regions fill themselves.
Regional project pages that read as one company's work, built from the shared template.
[ The system underneath ]
[ Results ]
18 | Regional websites unified 14 | Countries supported 1 | Scalable design system
The unified platform gave a Fortune 500 energy company one digital front door across fourteen countries instead of eighteen. Simplified navigation and consistent patterns serve four very different audiences from the same structure, while regional teams keep the flexibility they need. The lasting part is the system: regions now build from shared templates and components rather than from scratch, which is what makes the consolidation hold.
What I carry forward
Balancing global brand against local need is where flexible systems earn their keep. The audit was the most valuable week of the project: once everyone could see all eighteen sites at once, the argument for one system made itself.