Building a digital platform for the future of hydrogen safety.
The Compressed Gas Association had nearly 70 years of experience developing hydrogen safety standards. As hydrogen began expanding into new industries, infrastructure, transportation, energy and commercial applications, CGA saw the need for a dedicated initiative focused entirely on the safe growth of the hydrogen economy.
HDG was engaged to create the new Safe Hydrogen Project brand and, within the same six-month engagement, build a complete digital platform around it.
Rather than folding an increasingly complex body of hydrogen information into CGA’s existing website, Safe Hydrogen needed its own destination—one that could stand apart visually while carrying the authority behind CGA. The goal was to make a highly technical subject feel modern, accessible and intuitive for companies and professionals throughout the compressed gas and emerging hydrogen industries.
Turning complexity into an intuitive digital experience
HDG led the website from initial architecture through launch—developing the wireframes, content organization, UX/UI, page layouts, visual hierarchy, imagery, graphics, motion and complete digital expression of the new brand.
Working with CGA to refine the content for a digital environment, we organized large amounts of technical information around the ways users actually encounter hydrogen: production, delivery, storage, operations and applications.
The result was a technology-forward experience that gave users multiple visual pathways into the information rather than requiring them to understand CGA’s technical structure before they could find what they needed.
A major part of that solution was a custom standards platform. HDG designed a searchable, filterable visual library capable of organizing CGA’s extensive compressed-gas standards, including custom graphic covers created for the individual publications. Relevant hydrogen standards connect directly into the Safe Hydrogen experience while maintaining access to CGA’s standards and purchasing ecosystem.
The system was also designed for CGA to manage internally, allowing new standards to be added as they are developed without changing the underlying site architecture.
CGA described SafeHydrogenProject.org as the “cornerstone” of the new initiative in its 2023 Year in Review, reporting more than 21,000 users and 82,000+ page views during the site’s first year. Today, the standards experience has expanded to 45 hydrogen publications, including 13 currently in development.
Mapping the hydrogen economy
One element became the defining visual and interactive experience of the project: the Safe Hydrogen Map.
Drawing on HDG’s background in visual storytelling and translating complex systems into understandable graphics, we conceived an isometric city powered by hydrogen—showing production, delivery, storage and applications as parts of one interconnected system.
What began as a way to explain the hydrogen ecosystem became much more.
HDG illustrated and animated the complete environment, then transformed it into an interactive navigation experience. Users can explore areas of the city according to how hydrogen is being used and connect directly to the standards relevant to those applications.
The map became a hallmark of the Safe Hydrogen Project’s visual language and has since extended beyond the website into four HDG-produced instructional and informational videos, where it provides a consistent opening and closing connection back to the larger Safe Hydrogen mission.
Its usefulness has also moved beyond CGA itself. In 2025, the EU-supported HyAcademy added Mapping Safe Hydrogen Standards to its hydrogen standards and regulations resources, directing users to the interactive Safe Hydrogen experience.
The project established:
· A distinct digital destination for CGA’s Safe Hydrogen Project
· Complete website strategy, information architecture, wireframing and UX/UI
· A custom visual and motion system built from the new Safe Hydrogen brand
· A scalable standards search and filtering experience
· Custom visual covers for CGA standards
· Clear pathways through complex hydrogen production, delivery, storage and application information
· An interactive and animated Safe Hydrogen Map connecting real-world applications to relevant standards
· A maintainable platform CGA can continue expanding internally
· A visual storytelling system later extended into Safe Hydrogen educational video
Safe Hydrogen Project turned decades of technical knowledge into a digital experience built for an evolving industry—giving CGA a clearer way to organize its expertise, the industry a more intuitive way to access it, and the initiative a signature visual experience that continues to represent its mission today.
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