The look and feel of the app at the time could be described as a "legacy look".

Since user's and SME's were used to a spreadsheet looking software for this industry, this design was actually an improvement.

In the first exploration, the focus was on leveraging the current stack and components, so that changes that could be implemented in the DOM could be handed off and create "quick and dirty" improvements.
In an early stage startup, this was well received as it also provided room to prove the project was result-driven.

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The proposed design was well received, however, the Team leader showed me a new direction they were thinking about pursuing.

This second exploration, would try to leverage the Material-UI component library, as the product was going to shift to React.js. This meant a close adherence to Material Design guidelines, so as to make changes that would be impactful and not just for aesthetics.

Roboto was chosen as it is a font type that was made for readability.

The pantone color of the year, a darkish blue inspired the monochromatic color palette and cool greys used. Yellow a complimentary color in the color wheel was used as a Secondary highlight color.