A Visual Language for Weather
From Rebrand Rollout to On-Air System
Company
AccuWeather
Role
Art Director
Internal owner of the Loyalkaspar rebrand rollout across internal teams. Collaborated with the UX team on user research, AccuWeather's meteorologists on the color system, a senior motion designer on broadcast animation, and Massive Music on the sonic identity.
Brand System
Broadcast Graphics
Data Visualization
Iconography
Sonic Identity
Brand Foundation
A new logo, a custom typeface (Solis), and a strategic repositioning. I made it operational by translating the system into guidelines, templates, lockups, and photo direction standards that sales, marketing, product, and design teams could actually work from.
The Color System
The broadcast color system required sustained collaboration. Continuous user research with the UX team established what actually communicated danger clearly to a general audience, then many rounds with AccuWeather’s meteorologists ensured scientific accuracy. The result: a perceptually uniform spectral temperature gradient (deep teal for cold, amber for warm) and a continuous horizontal danger scale bar, Some → Moderate → High → Extreme, anchored in greyscale logic so severity reads without hue dependency.
Broadcast Playbook
I built and documented the full broadcast template system independently as a Figma playbook: Solis typography specifications at defined sizes, grid and margin rules, component hierarchy, and legend treatments for every data type. A second round of proposed on-air templates for weekend forecasts, MinuteCast, 7-day, gametime, was approved by leadership but never fully implemented.
Severe Weather & Hurricane Icons
I designed AccuWeather’s complete severe weather icon set — 12 severe weather icons and all hurricane icons — as brand-unique shapes that no other weather platform uses. The hurricane icons came first; the severe weather set followed. Both remain in active use across all AccuWeather platforms today.
Sonic Identity
I served as primary creative contact with Massive Music on the full AccuWeather sonic identity — long-form network theme, short-form app alerts, and podcast audio. The most specific design work was on the severe weather alert: the brief was urgency without drama, impossible to mistake for a routine notification. The final sound — a short, gradating staccato — accomplished that exactly. The full identity remains in active use and the Massive Music relationship was later leveraged as a confirmed partner on the WeatherCode pitch.
Challenge
AccuWeather’s broadcast graphics were visually outdated, brand-agnostic, and inaccessible to colorblind viewers. The system had barely changed in decades and communicated nothing about where the company stood.
Strategy
Lean into the awe of weather phenomena. Make every forecast feel cinematic. Ensure safety-critical information, threat levels, danger scales, is legible to everyone at a single glance, without color dependency.