SweepTrack — from idea to a shipped field product
A detecting session happens outdoors, one-handed, often in poor light and usually with gloves on. That constraint is the whole brief — the interface, the palette and the navigation all come out of it.
- Sector
- Consumer Android · Metal detecting
- Role
- Product concept, brand identity, interface design, design direction
- Period
- 2026 — Present
- Disciplines
- Product direction · Brand identity · UI design · Visual system · Android
One line traces the shaft and coil of a detector and resolves into an S. It had to survive being an app icon first — so it was drawn at 48px and grown from there.
Map — live session, satellite base layer
Context
SweepTrack is an Android application for metal detecting. It records where you walked, logs what you found against that track, and keeps sessions, maps and statistics together instead of spread across a notebook and a camera roll.
I took it from the initial idea through to a released product: the concept and feature set, the name and identity, the visual system, every screen, and the direction of the build through to store submission. It is the clearest evidence I have that I can carry a product past the point where most portfolio projects stop.
The design constraints came from the field rather than from a style. Screens are read in daylight and after dark, at arm's length, by someone already holding a detector — so the interface is dark-first, the primary controls sit in thumb reach at the bottom of the screen, and a full red night-vision mode exists so the app does not destroy dark adaptation at night.
A second edition, SweepTrack-RO, was built on the same identity and interface system for the Romanian market — the same design language, adapted rather than redrawn.
Interface
Built to be read outdoors, at arm's length.
History — sessions, finds and totals
Detector presets — saved machine configurations
Night vision — red on black, to protect dark adaptation
System
Three decisions the rest of the product hangs on.
- Typeface
Inter for interface, Space Grotesk for display, JetBrains Mono for numerics
Numbers are read at a glance mid-session, so they get a monospaced face and their own hierarchy.
- Colour
#00FF6A on near-black, plus nine selectable palettes
One signature green carries the brand; the rest of the palettes are user preference, not brand.
- Structure
Persistent bottom navigation with the record control at centre
A session can be started and stopped one-handed without looking away from the ground.
Identity in application
Role and outcome
Responsibilities
- Product concept and feature definition
- Brand identity — mark, wordmark, app icon
- Visual system — palette, typography, iconography
- Interface design across map, session, history and settings
- Design direction through implementation and release
- Store and launch assets — feature graphic, social templates
Outcome
- Two applications published on Google Play — SweepTrack and SweepTrack-RO.
- Product site live at sweeptrack.pro.
- One identity and one interface system running across both editions.