The Basics
Instrument clusters display the essential information for the driver. This includes the speed, oil temperature & RPM (for ICE vehicles), range, caution lights such as headlight, handbrake and other critical and important indicators. There are also few other icons such as steering assist, lane keep function etc. that vary from vehicle to vehicle.
Cluster design should be made keeping the theme and design ideology of the car as a whole in mind. Some of the examples are blocky looking design for BMWs, inclusion of hexagonal patterns in a Lamborghini, flashy lighting and gradient filled look in a Mercedes or a plain and simple looking design for a Tesla.
And of course, this is not a hard and fast rule but is done generally to maintain the familiarity of a brand with the users.
My Design Collection
Will add more to the collection as time passes.
My creative concepts revolved around creating an instrument cluster featuring dynamic 3D elements, designed to incorporate captivating motion graphics for essential metrics such as speed, RPM, power changes, and more.
I understand that the current designs are simpler, as I prioritized quick ideation over meticulous detailing. Future refinements will focus on enhancing and adding intricate elements.
Hex cluster
This cluster is mainly designed for EVs.
The main idea here is that the blue hexagonal shapes appear and disappear based on the current speed and power utilized. The range indicator was designed to blend in with the overall theme and was included over the power meter. Other essential information such as gear, driving and brake regeneration has been included at the bottom.
Compact bike cluster
In this I challenged myself to include all the essential information in a small form factor cluster for an electric bike.
Instrument cluster for Mahindra
I designed a few instrument clusters while at Marelli. One of them was meant for Mahindra. I wanted to design something different from the regular dials.
I took inspiration from the new Mahindra logo and designed a 3D looking interface.
Given the swift nature of this project, the current designs are works in progress and may lack some details. I plan to refine and enhance them further until I achieve a level of satisfaction.
A simple cluster
It’s time for the debut of a cluster with regular old dials. I started off with a simple-looking design but integrated the fuel and the oil temperature gauge into the speed and rpm meters itself.
One thing I have to explore more is the use of bright colors. Balancing bright colors is a bit more difficult than the darker ones. I would like to use brighter colors in recreating a silver metallic finish or any other colors with their appropriate real-life counterpart finishes.
Dials but a bit better
Started off with this. Added a metallic housing around the cluster.
Dialed down on the metallic finish. Muted the colors and made the concentric circles more visible and added a background to reduce emptiness. Also changed the default font.
