With a rebrand by View Source, First Street now defines America’s climate risk with greater clarity

First Street Foundation is doing some critical work – the tech non-profit collates and provides physical climate risk data which is used by leading experts across many industries and government agencies in the US, as well as everyday Americans. Its product, Risk Factor, provides information about any property’s environmental risks from flooding, wildfire, wind or extreme heat, helping citizens understand how climate change affects their home, business, or overall well-being, arming them with vital data. The organisation wanted a facelift and reached out to New York-based design studio View Source to help them find an image that encapsulates the current essence of the company and its work.

First Street’s data, and the way they present it, became a point of inspiration for the team. When updating the logo, which was based on a numerical ‘1,’ View Source “began thinking about how their product language – a system of cards ranking a property’s climate risk factor from zero to 10 could influence a custom number ‘1,’” Partner & Creative Director Andrew Rutledge tells us. “The result holds within it a few details that speak to the brand’s product – merging streets, an upwards arrow, as well as the Risk Factor cards – and from that base we found ourselves with a simple system to work from,” he adds, about how the refreshed logo drove the team to the larger brand structure.

Working on the topic of climate change – and how it will continue to affect our lives in the coming years – meant that the team had to be aware of the collective anxiety that surrounds the subject. They found that one way to temper the fear of the unknown is to embrace knowledge and ensure that it’s made accessible through a clear, comprehensive approach. “When approaching the design, especially the content, we knew that their product is imbued with a bit of anxiety,” Rutledge points out. “Calming that anxiety comes through the reassurance of a greater understanding of what risks are at play in your life, wellbeing, property, etc… This knowledge influenced our process, guiding us with the north star of clarity. The resulting output shouldn’t be academic, but authoritative.”

Steering clear of a dense, highbrow take, View Source used a compartmentalised system and a sharp typographic palette to structure the data. They picked Restart Hard and the monospaced MD IO to heighten the utilitarian design and speak to the technicality backing First Street’s peer-reviewed research, while the colour palette came from the product itself. “The palette was inspired by the Risk Factor product UI palette. Again, it’s a system from zero to 10, with a gradation of colours to highlight risk. After a bit of testing, and of course ADA compliance research, we settled on two colours from each gradation that felt like a family, and also worked to complement and contrast one another.” Bringing together each element – along with a suite of 3D illustrations that visualise the impact of climate change – to form a comprehensive whole, View Source allows First Street’s data to shine.