Zero Digital Presence
No website, no domain content, no way for an entrant or sponsor to find the show, see the field, or register online.
Case File No. 05
UI/UX & Product Case Study
Wheaton Concours
Charity Exotic Car Show — Wheaton, IL
Designing and shipping the full registration, sponsorship, and payment platform for a brand-new charity car show — from a blank domain to a live site with Stripe checkout, in two weeks, solo.
No. 01The Project
Project Overview
Wheaton Concours is a new exotic-forward charity car show at Memorial Park in Wheaton, IL — presented with the Wheaton Police Department and benefiting Special Olympics Illinois. Supercars, classics, American muscle, and one-off builds share the field on August 22, 2026.
The organizers came in with a date, a park, and a cause — but no website, no way to take registrations or payments, and no sponsor pipeline. Everything else — brand direction, information architecture, pricing structure, registration flow, and the live build — was scoped and shipped end to end.
Tech Inspection✓ Passed
TypeEvent & Registration Platform
LocationWheaton, IL
Duration2 Weeks
RoleUI/UX Engineer (Design + Dev, Solo)
ToolsFigma · VS Code · Stripe · Google Sheets
DeliverablesBrand Direction · Registration Flow · Sponsor Tiers · Live Site
Desktop — wheatonconcours.com homepage
Mobile — responsive layout
No. 02The Challenge
A Show With No Front Door
Local charity car shows like this one traditionally run on paper: a mail-in registration form, a check made out to a foundation, and a phone call to lock in a sponsorship. Wheaton Concours needed to launch fast, look credible to sponsors writing four-figure checks, and process real money — without any of that manual overhead.
Paper-Based Precedent
Comparable local shows still run on mail-in forms and checks postmarked by a deadline — slow, error-prone, and invisible until the show.
Unresolved Pricing & Payments
Entry fees, sponsor tiers, and Stripe processing costs all had to be worked out together — before a single dollar could be collected.
| Dimension | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Entry registration | Mail-in form + check, postmarked by deadline | Instant online registration + Stripe checkout |
| Payment confirmation | Manual — wait for mail, cash the check | Automated webhook flips status to paid, confirmation email sent |
| Sponsorship | Phone calls, ad hoc pricing | Three published tiers with clear pricing & perks |
| Brand presence | None | Live site, countdown timer, calendar integration, sponsor wall |
No. 03Who We Designed For
Three Groups, Three Needs
The site had to work for the people running the show, the people driving onto the field, and the local businesses paying to be seen — each with a different relationship to risk, time, and money.
Event Organizer
Stakeholder / Decision-Maker
- Needs pricing locked fast, with real numbers
- Coordinating police dept, charity & permits
- Wants a site they can point sponsors to immediately
Too many open questions block launch — permits, insurance, and pricing all compete for attention
Car Owner / Entrant
Show-Day Participant
- Wants to register their car in minutes
- Needs to know what class they're entering
- Expects instant confirmation after paying
A mail-in form with an uncertain postmark deadline feels risky and slow
Local Business Sponsor
Gold / Platinum / Diamond
- Wants clear visibility into what a tier includes
- Needs to justify a four-figure spend internally
- Wants an easy way to claim a slot before it's gone
Phone-only booking with no published pricing looks unprofessional and slows down the decision
No. 04How We Got There
Two Weeks, In Order
1
Stakeholder Alignment
Prepared a structured 9-topic meeting agenda and front-loaded the two questions that could block everything else: sponsorship pricing and permits.
Discovery
2
Pricing & Payments
Modeled Stripe fees across ticket and sponsor price points to recommend numbers that held up once processing costs were real.
Strategy
3
Flow Architecture
Designed the registration pipeline: form submit → pending row in Sheets → Stripe checkout → webhook → confirmation email.
UX + Systems
4
Visual Identity
Landed on a dark, racing-red muscle aesthetic with Bebas Neue display type — built to feel like the field it's promoting.
Design
5
Build & Ship
Built the live site — hero, countdown, car classes, sponsor tiers, community section — and wired up registration end to end.
Development
Items 3 and 9 on the stakeholder agenda — sponsorship pricing and permits/insurance — were flagged up front as the two that could block everything downstream. Resolving them first kept the other seven topics from stalling the build.
No. 05Key Design Features
What Was Built
Two-Tier Entry System
$20 pre-sale (capped at 150 cars, closing Aug 16) versus $30 at the gate — with the price gap doing the work of driving early registration.
Decision: keep pre-sale at $20 net of fees rather than pass the Stripe fee to entrants, based on the fee model at 500 cars.
Three-Tier Sponsorship
Gold ($500), Platinum ($1,500, most popular), and Diamond ($3,000, headline) — each with escalating perks from a single field entry to main-lawn placement and DJ shoutouts.
Decision: publish pricing openly instead of "call for a quote," so a sponsor can self-qualify before ever picking up the phone.
Car Class Showcase
Supercars, Classics, American Muscle, and Other — presented as large hover tiles that link straight into registration, so browsing turns into intent.
Decision: curated categories over a long checklist of 15+ classes, matching the "curated, not crowded" positioning of the show.
Countdown & Calendar Integration
A live countdown to show day, one-tap Google Calendar add, and a map link straight to Memorial Park — built to convert casual visits into calendar commitments.
Decision: surface the countdown above the fold on both desktop and mobile, since urgency was the strongest lever for a pre-sale with a hard cap.
Entry tiers — presale vs. sponsorship
Car class showcase
Registration & Payment Flow
From form submit to confirmed entry
Designed to fail safely: nothing is marked "paid" until Stripe's webhook confirms it, so a dropped connection never produces a false confirmation.
Owner Submits Form
Car details + class
→
Row Saved to Sheet
Status: pending
→
Stripe Checkout
$20 / $30 per car
→
Webhook Fires
Status → paid
→
Confirmation Email
Entrant notified
No. 06Visual Identity
Design System & Branding
Logo & Mark
WHEATON
Concours
Color Palette
Background#0A0A0A
Surface#141414
Racing Red#C8102E
Deep Red#8A0A1F
Primary Text#F2F0EC
Typography
WHEATON CONCOURS
BECOME A SPONSOR
Curated, not crowded — every car on the lawn is one you want to walk over to.
Components
Platinum
$1,500
Main lawn + 2 VIP passes
18
Days
23
Hrs
25
Min
Sponsor tier cards — Gold, Platinum, Diamond
No. 07Where It Stands
Live and Ahead of Show Day
Wheaton Concours takes place August 22, 2026 — so this isn't a results-and-attendance story yet. What's true today: the site is live, registration is open, and sponsor commitments are already coming in ahead of the show.
2
Weeks, Design to Launch
9+
Sponsor Brands Confirmed Pre-Show
150
Pre-Sale Entries Available
- ✓ Site live at wheatonconcours.com with registration and Stripe checkout functioning end to end
- ✓ Sponsor roster already includes Cannonball Garage, The Hamilton Collection, Cambier Capital, Chicago Motorcars, Strada Motorsports, Dempsey Kustoms, 5 Stitches, and Capture Company
- ✓ Official partnership secured with the Wheaton Police Department, benefiting Special Olympics Illinois
- ✓ Three sponsor tiers published with self-serve visibility into pricing and perks — no more phone-only booking
This section will get an update after August 22 with real attendance, funds raised for Special Olympics Illinois, and final sponsor numbers — logged here rather than estimated in advance.
No. 08Reflection
What I Learned
01
Front-Load the Blockers
Structuring the stakeholder agenda around what could actually stall launch — pricing, permits — instead of going topic-by-topic in order, kept a 30-minute meeting from turning into three.
02
Price With the Fees Visible
Modeling Stripe's cut at every price point before recommending numbers turned a guessing game into a decision the organizer could sign off on with confidence.
03
Design for What You Can't Control
A permit that isn't pulled yet or an insurance question still open doesn't stop good design work — it just means building the parts that don't depend on the answer first.