Same Simple Graphics, All New Design

Written on: 25th Jul 2021

Well well well. It's been a long time coming, but the new graphics are here. 

Those who follow more closely will have noticed the almost weekly changes to the graphics, a little bit of colour tweaking here, a slightly more rounded corner there. The truth is, I've never been 100% satisfied with the current design. It's become somewhat of a running joke that I never keep the same graphic design for more than a few days, whilst perhaps a little hyperbolic, there is some truth to that. 

When it comes to graphic design, I want them to be the best they possibly can be. Over the past 15 years or so I've likely gone through hundreds of iterations as my knowledge of photoshop and to some extent graphic design, has expanded. 

Roughly two months ago I decided to throw out the current (now old, I suppose) design, open Photoshop and begin designing from the ground up. I currently have a folder with over 50 different design concepts, different keys, different criteria, some highly detailed, some far more simplistic. 

Data shows that twitter users tend to spend less than 2 seconds looking at a tweet before deciding whether or not to click on it, I suspect that's a little different for my followers as I have more of a captive audience, but I decided I wanted something bright, colourful, eye catching, the age of "dark mode' I think, at least for me, has now come to an end.

The current graphics were born out of the need for simplistic design, I'm a huge fan of Apples hardware but in particular software design. The strive towards order and simplicity has long inspired some of my past graphic designs. I want to go over a few of them. 

The above design is one I used for the longest period of time I think. It served us well, easy to understand key, threat level criteria on the graphic itself. The design I would say was fairly average, very boxed in design, visually it looks okay, nothing really ‘stand out’ about it, but it did the job that was needed!

A couple of years ago when Dark Mode became the rage, I decided to get onto that design trend and go dark too, there were a few different designs before the one above, but I want to start off where the latest graphic design trend begun. On the face of it, it's a fairly nice design. Simple and easy to understand key, dedicated “risk level” area at the top to highlight what the likelihood of thunderstorms is. But; There's not much white space, things look a little cramped, a little confused. There's no real visual hierarchy, the overall colour scheme is dark and not particularly eye-catching. Lets take a look at another;

This is a slightly more recent design then the first; Broadly the same though but with the introduction of rounded, more modern corners. Much the same as the above, it suffers with being fairly dark, the eye is naturally drawn to the key which was a design choice, but overall fairly bland and un-inspiring. 

You can see how the above two designs led to the very latest design iteration. Darker colours > introduction of rounded corners > Design maturity. The rounded corners are something I like, they're modern and more pleasing to the eye compared with sharp corners. I still felt like there was something missing with this latest design. 

Latest Design Iteration

So. Onto the new graphics. Two months ago I went to the drawing board, I had three key target points I wanted to satisfy.

1. Was the design simplistic? Could information be gathered within 2 seconds?
2. Is the key simple enough to not have to go searching for more information?
3. Will the design stand the test of time?

This design was in my concept folder for over a month, it was one of the earlier concepts I'd come up with, although not quite as flushed out as it is now. A few days ago, I came across a much higher resolution image of the UK and that was the missing piece to making this graphic work. So here it is;

The new graphic to me, is beautiful. It's simplistic in a way none of the previous designs were, the big, bold colour box in the top right instantly lets you know what level of risk has been issued, the clear and concise white box in the middle telling you when the outlook is valid from and to, with a key underneath that shows you what each risk level denotes. Below that, a section to highlight what is necessary for a severe thunderstorm outlook to be issued.

On the left, we have the map area. This is an ultra-high 4k resolution topographic 3D render of the UK, capable of insane zoom levels. This will allow more area focused advisories and outlooks to be issued. When much of the UK is at risk, we can see the above zoomed out level, when a much more local area is at risk, we can see a high-definition, zoomed in advisory, as per the example below.

Oh! More news, all convective outlooks, advisories and snow risks will also include the Republic of Ireland, previously only Northern Ireland as part of the UK was covered, but now the entire UK and ROI will be covered across all spectrums. 

The graphic meets the above criteria, it's instantly clear what level of risk has been issued, the key is very simplistic and easy to understand at a glance and I believe, this design is something that could last a long, long time to come. 

It's a mixture of modern with the rounded corners, drop shadows on the box and very slight gradient to the dynamically coloured alert box. 

Many say that changing graphics too often doesn't allow brand identity to develop, I can now say I am satisfied and 100% happy with these graphics and hopefully in 3 years time, they will still very much be in use and instantly recognisable as Met4Cast. 

Thank you - Dan x