You’re out running errands and reach for your phone to text a friend. What exactly did they want you to pick up? Only one problem: You didn’t notice the low battery icon. And just like that, your phone is dead.
London-based designer Ben Vessey has made a collection of iPhone wallpapers that could save you from going off the grid. They change when your battery gets low in order to give you a big visual cue that it’s time for a charge.
[Image: courtesy Ben Vessey]It’s a smart fix, especially since Apple’s battery icon is so tiny. But you can’t miss these wallpapers, which change your entire phone background. The six designs, available on his website for about $5.50, come in two different packs. One is a riff on the classicHappy Mac and similarly inspired Apple Face ID, which starts out with a smile on a black background surrounded by green rings, and turns to a big frowny face surrounded by red rings when you hit low battery. The red shifts to yellow lightning bolts when you’ve found a charging outlet and the phone is getting some juice.[Image: courtesy Ben Vessey]There’s also an apple design, which starts out whole and shifts to an apple core when your battery gets low; and a high-voltage background that looks like a classic smiley face when the phone is fully charged, but shifts to a frown when the battery runs low. A few design traits they all have in common? They’re all simple, and loudly to the point.
[Image: courtesy Ben Vessey]Vessey says he was looking to solve for two main issues: First, sometimes a person doesn’t plug in their phone correctly, so they think it’s charging but it’s actually not. The charging wallpaper lets you know either way loud and clear. Second, of course, is the low battery. “Our subconscious tends to take over when iOS displays a low battery warning and we quickly dismiss it, continuing with the task at hand,” says Vessey. These wallpapers make the warning impossible to ignore.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lilly Smith is an associate editor of Co.Design. She was previously the editor of Design Observer, and a contributing writer to AIGA Eye on Design.More
