Primary lockup · on chart paperConcept 9 · Synoptic
A power weather service.
Meteorology already does what MainsKeeper must: it keeps observations apart from forecasts, says when a station stopped reporting, and prints the time of every report. So each site becomes an observation station, every reading an observation with its time, every UPS runtime a forecast — and incidents become bulletins written in plain operational words.
Rationale
- Honesty is the brandWeather charts are trusted because they show coverage and missing stations without embarrassment. The identity borrows that confidence: hatched “No records”, dashed forecasts, hollow late reports.
- The metaphor frames, never replacesBulletin headlines read “Broadwater: BW Rack UPS on battery since 15:09”. No storm puns where urgency lives; a little wit is allowed when the fleet is calm.
- Broadcast, not brochureFlat fills, heavy rules, a wonky soft serif for station names, a mono for numbers. Bold enough to read across a room on a wall display.
Logomark: the station mast
A wind barb stood upright. In a station plot the staff carries pennants and barbs that encode a measurement; here the staff carries MainsKeeper’s promise — a pennant for what is observed now, barbs for the record behind it, and a solid station square at the foot. No ring, no bolt, no socket.
- 1Pennant — a 26 × 18 unit triangle in warm-front red. In a wind barb a pennant is the largest unit; here it is the current observation, flown at the top.
- 2Full barb — 16 units at 19° below the pennant: the record.
- 3Half barb — 8 units: the history still arriving.
- 4Station square — 12 × 12 solid foot. Solid means “in contact”; in the pictogram system it turns hollow when contact is lost.
- 5Staff — 4 units wide, 31 tall; every pictogram shares the same mast position on its own 24-unit grid, so the mark and the status icons are one family.
Wordmark and lockups
“MainsKeeper” set in Fraunces at optical size 144, weight 760, SOFT 100, WONK 1 — the softened, leaning serif of a weather presenter’s caption card — then outlined to SVG paths with its kerning, so it renders identically everywhere.
App icon and favicon — real sizes
The app icon puts the mast on deep studio ground with three faint contour lines. The favicon drops the barbs: at 16 px only the pennant, staff and station square survive, and that is enough to be recognisable.
MainsKeeper · Station chartDuplex reportGrafanaMainsKeeper · BulletinsMail32 px bookmark / pinned tab16 px
app icon at 32 pxAll previews are the shipped SVG files drawn at their stated pixel size — not enlargements.
Pictogram system
Fifteen station pictograms, one geometry: a 24-unit grid, 2-unit stroke, square caps, mitred joins, mast always at x = 7. They are the only icon family in the product. Status always pairs a pictogram with words.
- On utilityMains present, observed now
- On batteryUPS running from battery, observed
- ReportingStation/collector in contact
- Contact lostNo contact; cause unknown
- Last knownValue as last reported before contact ended
- Not reportedDevice does not report this measurement
- RechargingOn utility, battery charge rising
- RecoveredFresh evidence: contact / connectivity restored
- SyncingLate station reports still uploading
- No recordsHistory gap: station not reporting
- UPS estimateForecast from the UPS, not a measurement
- Late reportObserved earlier, received later
- Uncertain timeTimestamp uncertain (bracketed)
- BulletinOpen incident
- AcknowledgedSomeone has seen it; still open
- The flag says what power is doingPennant = on utility. Battery flag = on battery. Dash = not reported. Swallow-tail = bulletin.
- The foot says whether we can hear the stationSolid square = in contact. Hollow square = no contact. A broken staff = contact lost; a splint on the staff = recovered.
- The line says how sure we areSolid = observed. Dashed = UPS estimate. Hollow = late or last-known. Hatched = no records. Brackets = uncertain time.
Palette: broadcast chart
Light-first on sage chart paper, because the product is read in daylight at a desk; a deep green-black “studio” ground for wall displays and night. Fronts carry meaning but never alone — every status also has a pictogram and words.
- Aa
- Aa
- Aa
- Aa
- Aa
- Aa
- Aa
- —
- Aa
- Aa
- Aa
- Aa
Typography
Two OFL variable families, bundled locally. Fraunces is the presenter: station names, headlines, verdicts. Recursive is the observer: its Linear style for interface text, its Mono axis for every number, and its Casual axis only for calm-state asides.
Broadwater
Fair conditions across all four stations.
SOFT 0 / WONK 0 for comparison — Duplex, Shop, Home
Recursive · Linear (MONO 0, CASL 0) — interfaceBroadwater: BW Rack UPS on battery since 15:09
Recursive · Mono (MONO 1) — data71% · 38% · est. 18 min · 4 s · 15:21:48
Recursive · Casual (CASL 1) — calm asides onlyClear skies over the whole fleet.
Files: fonts/Fraunces-VF.woff2, fonts/Recursive-VF.woff2 (variable, Latin subset) with fonts/OFL.txt. Fallbacks: Georgia / system-ui / ui-monospace.
Bulletin specimen
Flat, high-contrast, plain words first. The metaphor is the frame (a bulletin with a swallow-tail flag); the headline is operational.
Broadwater: BW Rack UPS on battery since 15:09
Open · Not acknowledged · Not recovered · Sync current · Email + push delivered 15:09:14