Designing for a Deadline: Driven by Bajaj Auto’s CNG Bike

Let’s be honest, in the world of commercial creation, deadlines are one of the biggest challenges. Creators—designers to developers to writers—often find themselves trying to juggle the luxury of creative freedom and the pressure of ‘the client wanted it yesterday!’ This balance is where the magic happens, where deadlines can be a catalyst - pushing stakeholders and creators to focus and converge to bring ideas to life.

What keeps deadlines alive is regular exposure to attention, productivity, and prioritization. The thrill of achieving a well-crafted product on time is unparalleled, and it’s this satisfaction, the sense of achievement that drives us forward.

One such deadline knocked LY’s doors a few months ago, with a demand as unique as it can be. A first-of-its-kind product; introduced by a renowned and loved brand: Bajaj. Bajaj Auto, to be specific. 

Bajaj Auto conceptualized, designed, and built the world’s first CNG bike. Our job was to design its website to support the launch with a features’ page. The product, with its many USPs, not only came with a distinctive identity but also a very tight timeline. The brand wanted to introduce the world to this green beauty of a bike, as soon as possible. And how could they not? The Bajaj Freedom CNG bike was an extraordinary product with many upsides including cutting down the bike’s operating costs by 50% and benefitting the consumer, the nation, and the planet. 

Needless to say, creating an experience for this revolutionary brand was an honor. With determination and dedication to launch a feature-rich website of the world’s first CNG bike, we got to work.

The project involved multiple solutions: UI/UX design, visual design, animation, and development. The UX team led the way with a well-researched concept. The North Star was simple: Bajaj Freedom is transitioning from a regular vehicle to an eco-friendly marvel. The gradient from blue to green, symbolized this journey forming the foundation for the website’s theme and colors, building a design system that would accelerate the visual design & development.

With a solid base in place, we moved towards bringing the concept to life. We decided it was critical to showcase the motorcycle’s technical specifications, performance, and unique features through a visually rich design and interactive UX design. 

And lo and behold! Within just 3 weeks of extensive, continuous team effort, the web design was good to go. With designs locked and loaded, we moved on to make it functional with development.

Typically, a design as intricate as Bajaj Freedom’s with images and animated videos takes weeks and months to build. Weeks and months we didn’t have. 

The development team worked with designers using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, GSAP, and Lenis to create a functional and engaging website. Every section was crafted, reviewed and approved to ensure seamless integration of design and functionality. 

And the website was built, piece by piece, section by section and approval after approval.

Collaboration was key. A detailed project plan and constant, clear communication kept us on track. And we could deliver a superior quality website in a matter of just a few weeks.

What brought people together was not just the deadline, but the dedication to deliver high quality work in the shortest possible time. Which meant every member rolling up their sleeves and making themselves counted, accounting for last minute changes, back and forth of feedback and extending personal limits. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the secret sauce of designing with deadlines: a smooth collaboration between all involved—internal and external—with a shared understanding and commitment to a common vision.

After all, designers, animators, developers or writers, we’re user experience enthusiasts at our core. The goal was to create a delightful website experience for consumers of the world’s first CNG bike. With a super tight deadline looming over our creative heads! The productivity, attention to detail, timeliness and above all our collaborative effort were seeds that we sowed along the way 

The outcome? A timely launch and a very happy client!

It’s moments like these that remind us why we do what we do. Team work really does make the dream work, deadlines or not!