GoSun by Latimer Design: Winner of the Outstanding Shop Award for best Turbo store

At just 23 years old, Bailey Latimer of Latimer Design is finding his way in the world of ecommerce design, and creating award-winning online stores in the process. 

His work with solar-powered product company GoSun not only brought him and the brand an Outstanding Shop Award, but his designs helped the company turn a profit for the first time. 

Finding a niche

The self-taught designer says he’s still figuring out in which direction he wants to grow. Recently though, he’s been enjoying working with smaller businesses, focusing on providing great results for a fair price. 

“Early-stage websites often suffer from poor usability, visual consistency, and information architecture,” says Latimer. “There’s also a gap between the price local contractors and agencies are charging versus the value they’re giving. Latimer Design exists to fill those gaps.”

Latimer is currently drawn to working with brands in the sustainable consumer goods sphere. 

“I like to work with brands taking a modern solution on a traditional problem. I make complicated things simple and boring things fun,” says Latimer.

An award-winning project

Last year, Latimer redesigned the online store for GoSun, a company that creates solar-powered products for everyday use. He used Out of the Sandbox’s Turbo theme to create the award-winning design.

“Out of the box, the mega-menu navigation is fantastic,” says Latimer. “Very flexible and intuitive. For custom tweaks, I'm a big fan of light and dark mode, minicart modals, and social sections on the homepage.”

Keeping GoSun’s product pages updated with their ever-changing bundle promotions included a lot of manual work from their team. Latimer worked around this by creating a custom solution that he’s especially proud of. 

“Their team would update the product pages manually, which was tedious and error-prone,” says Latimer. “So I built a solution that allows them to select any combination of products and import the content dynamically.”

Helping the brand expand their product lines

During their partnership, Latimer actually helped GoSun develop their product line.

“When we began working together, GoSun was a solar oven company,” says Latimer. “Over the last year, I've helped them expand their offering to coolers, power, lighting, water, and tiny homes. Now, they're a one-stop shop for off-grid living.”

In fact, Latimer’s work for GoSun has helped the company turn a profit for the first time ever. 

“I'm most proud of my work with GoSun,” says Latimer. “I created a winning brand, design system, and ecommerce experience. Now, they're profitable for the first time in their 7-year history.”

Advice for product-makers

After having some experience in product development, Latimer advises other product-makers to keep their offerings simple and market them with a focus on how they might be used by customers. 

“It's not about what your product can do, it's about what people can do with your product,” says Latimer. “Simplify, then simplify again. By offering less, you can stand for more.”