Sreehas Sreejith
← All work

Case study 03 · Bygglovsportalen · Real client

Making building permits feel simple.

Bygglovsportalen lets Swedish homeowners create their own building-permit documents, without hiring engineers or architects. In four weeks, our team gave the startup a brand and a website that make a stressful process feel easy, and the founder took our logo and my home page layout live.

Client
Bygglovsportalen AB
My role
Designer: UX and UI
Team
Six, at Hyper Island
Timeline
4 weeks
Method
Double Diamond

ProblemBuilding permits are confusing and slow. The brand had to promise the opposite, and the old site didn’t.

What we didA design audit, a client workshop, user interviews and surveys, then a new brand and a web and mobile prototype.

OutcomeThe founder called it “I don’t like the new design, I LOVE IT!” Our logo and my home page layout are now on the live site.

Bygglovsportalen logo next to the redesigned website on a laptop and a phone
01 · The challenge

A simpler process deserves a brand that feels simple too.

Getting a building permit in Sweden usually means paying engineers and architects for drawings and documents. Bygglovsportalen lets people produce them themselves, with no prior knowledge.

But the brand and website didn’t carry that promise. If the service felt as confusing as the permit process itself, it would add to the very frustration it was built to remove.

Our goal: a brand that is uncomplicated, friendly and memorable, and a site that works as well on a phone as on a desktop.

02 · Discover

An audit of what existed, then a workshop with the founder.

Design audit chart rating name, logo, typography, colours, patterns, imagery, animation, illustration and layout
Design audit: every part of the existing brand, sized by how much room it had to improve.

I ran a design audit of the existing brand and site, from name and logo to typography, colour, imagery and layout, to find where the biggest opportunities were.

Then we ran a workshop with the client to map the audience, sort brand values into yes, maybe and no, plot awareness channels by impact and effort, and set the brand’s tone of voice.

Workshop photos: target audience map, brand values sorted into yes, maybe and no, awareness channels and tone of voice sliders, plus the team planning board
The client workshop: audience, values, channels and tone of voice, on the wall.
03 · Define

Who it’s really for.

Through interviews and surveys with Bygglovsportalen’s customers, we learned what frustrated them about the service and the process. We turned it into personas and three different stylescapes, so the client could react to real directions instead of abstract words.

  1. DIY builders, 30 to 55Often in the suburbs or countryside, wanting to do it themselves.
  2. Busy and stressedNo time to research the process after work.
  3. Anxious about money“Is it worth it?” and “Am I doing this right?”
  4. Phone first“Can I do it on my phone?” came up again and again.
04 · Develop & deliver

From paper sketches to a brand and a working prototype.

We started on paper, sketching the home page and key pages together, then I turned the sketches into digital wireframes for web and mobile.

From there I designed the high-fidelity prototype, built on the new brand: a step-by-step journey from idea to start building, with Bygglovsportalen as the step in the middle that creates your documents.

We tested it with a small group of users and iterated on their feedback before handing it over.

Paper sketches, grey digital wireframes for desktop and mobile, and the final high-fidelity pages connected in a Figma prototype
Paper sketch → wireframe → prototype, connected in Figma.
05 · The brand

A construction engineer who explains things kindly.

We gave the brand a persona: an experienced engineer who loves helping people with no prior knowledge. Its tone is warm, assuring and encouraging. The palette borrows from the building site, with names like Tegel (brick), Gräsmatta (lawn), Cement and Asfalt.

Bygglovsportalen wordmark with a house replacing the A, in colour, on dark and on white, and on t-shirts
The logo: a house hidden in “portalen”.
Brand colours Tegel, Mjuk tegel, Cement, Gräsmatta, Mjuk gräsmatta and Asfalt, the Barlow typeface, icons and photography
Colours, Barlow type, icons and imagery.
Brand persona and tone of voice: easy and positive, warm and optimistic, assuring and credible, encouraging and informative
Persona and tone of voice.
The redesigned Bygglovsportalen home page on a laptop and a phone
The prototype on desktop and mobile. Placeholder copy was left for the client’s own content team.
06 · Result

From a crowded, pink page to a calm, guided start.

Before: the old pink Bygglovsportalen site with a countdown. After: the new design with a clear hero and a five-step journey
Before and after, on desktop and mobile.
What the client said
“You have exceeded my expectations! The inputs you have shared after your findings are valuable! I don’t like the new design, I LOVE IT!”
Ertan DazdarevicErtan DazdarevicCEO & Founder, Bygglovsportalen

Bygglovsportalen then took the work live: our logo and the home page structure and layout I designed are now part of the real site. See bygglovsportalen.se ↗

07 · What I learned

My taste is not the brand’s taste.

Coming from India, my first instinct was bright, vibrant colour. This project taught me to let the brand’s values and tone make that choice, not my own preferences.

Working with a brand strategist, a content strategist and two business strategists showed me how much stronger design gets when it starts from a shared understanding of the business, and ends with the people who will use it.

Team: Janika Schweizer (team lead), Ebba Fälth (brand), Michelle Job (content), Trishita Saha and Yuuka Furuya (business), and me (design). Course: Designing for Brand and Business Value, Hyper Island, with Lindsay Tingstrom, Design Manager at Volvo Cars, as industry lead.

Our team with the Bygglovsportalen founders in front of a screen showing the new logo
Presentation day, with the client.