Heatmap is a climate newsroom monitoring the busy intersection of science, technology, economics, and culture. Before publishing their first article, Heatmap leadership — a fiercely curious group of former editors hailing from a range of widely circulated magazines — tapped Abbr. Projects to design a new identity and apply it to the tidy wireframes created by the site’s development partner, RebelMouse. Avoiding the obvious graphical representations of heat maps, often seen as cloudy, organic gradients, we landed on a concept that zooms into single pieces of data, abstracting individual data points as colorful enlarged pixels. We then used this system to frame content, indicate categories, and emphasize text or imagery on the new site. Equal parts pop art and popular science, the system is endlessly applicable, from newsletters to subway ads, always in the service of bringing new color to the climate conversation.
