In New York, community solar lets homes, apartments and small businesses subscribe to an offsite solar project without installing panels. Most projects work on a subscription: members receive credits on their electric bill for their portion of the electricity the project generates each month (NYSERDA). Nothing is installed at home, and the product arrives as a line on a bill. The brief for Sunlot was to make a share of a solar farm you may never see feel like something you own.

The name does the first half of the work: a lot is a parcel of land, and it’s also your share. The identity does the rest. One grid stands for one solar project, and one filled square for the member’s lot. The grid is the logo, the graphic on the monthly summary and the sign at the site, and the summary pairs it with three numbers: energy generated, credit received and total since joining. I refused the sun icon, the lightning bolt and rooftop photos, because members have no panels on their roof. Each grid is drawn from two numbers, the size of the project and the size of the share, so a new project is a new grid, not a new design.