This is shit and nobody is taking the time to explain why so I'm going to try. Excuse my anger, but with every unsolicited redesign paired with a presumptuous Medium article that is made for the sole purpose of grabbing attention I get more and more annoyed. This concept (like so many others I've seen lately) is obviously not thought through but doesn't hesitate a second to criticize the work of designers that have surely spent weeks upon weeks to design a readable on-screen identity for the sole reason that it doesn't fit with their idea of what looks good.

That clock is terrible. Aside from the fact that it doesn't show crucial information (such as the amount of extra time added), the light helvetica cut for the seconds (and extra time) is going to be impossible to read at SD or from further away. The outer ring is going to vanish when on top of something light or visually complex (such as sideline ads). Add compression to the mix (from either live streaming or terrestrial broadcasting) this design is broken.

Also what the fuck is up with those in-game notifications? Are they seriously suggesting showing cards and substitutions with black on white icons? I don't even know what a bunch of the icons are supposed to mean. Half of them are weather icons anyway, good job at creating "a selection of important football moments". Oh and the format of the notifications is shit too. "A square format which really works well on television" – where's the evidence for that? Ever wondered why all of the sports TV overlays are thin and landscape? It's because the fucking text on it has that form! Try placing a name like "Papastathopoulos" in a square box and then tell me how a squares work well on TV. Where do the flags for the countries go? Oh so they didn't fit in the square that's perfect for TV so you spelled them out? Good job.

I don't even want to go into detail about the rest of it. Setting aside the fact that it is well proven that Helvetica sucks as a screen typeface (especially in small sizes), only one of the mockups even attempts to show what the broadcast would actually look like during the game, by using a processed photo of Neymar. There is not a single image of what WATCHING THE FUCKING GAME would look like with their interface.

"We would like to get noticed for football's good sake" – can it get any more pretentious than that? You're not going to change football, especially not with crappy design.

Wow!

Wimbledon is a hot topic right now. I'm gonna redesign grass so I can get some attention for my deprived small ego.

What about people that watch the world cup from 40 years old TVs? What about people (like me) that actually like drop shadows and 3d representations of players on the field?

Should video games HUD be all flat too?

Designers with free time. We need to make a list of things that REALLY need a redesign. Things that matter. Not f* football.

3 guys doing a flat ui redesign concept of the world cup? i think we've hit peak "unsolicited redesign."

Don't redesign things in one day. Take your time and think about the problem you need to solve.

Here in Irish and UK channels they do all of that already, and more. What channels don't, out of interest?

Also I think you're vastly overestimating how much value the average person places in aesthetics like drop shadows and gradients. I've been watching football my whole life and not heard one complaint that it's hard to understand what's going on with the interface.

The best word I have for this thing—both the design itself and the rationale behind it—is "preposterous". Designing for attention instead of problem solving devalues our work as designers and doesn't help better our profession. Very, very sad.

On top of everything that's been said, the data is wrong. It should be 3-0 for France! (cough cough). Seriously, we've beaten Brasil 3 times out of 4 in World Cup encounters.

Wait, an unsolicited redesign?

WHERE ARE TEH ADS?

The World Cup is watched by hundreds of millions of people on all sorts of devices in all sorts of lighting conditions; the score and advertisements have to be as clear as possible. Also, the "flat" aesthetic is not universally adored as something that's clearer.

It also makes the assumption that visual design is the "design" that the World Cup needs:

We would like to get noticed for football’s good sake. We need good design, especially on television and certainly on channels where drop shadows still roam, and gradients are abundant.

There's so much pretension here that it makes my fingers sweat. If there's one thing that unauthorized redesigns do great, it's showing the weaknesses of the designers at hand. In this case, it's a fundamental lack of understanding of what a new "design" means for the branding of the presentation of the World Cup broadcasts. That is not a bad thing, as aesthetics are a great deal of what we comprehend as a well-design entity. But it also shows the lens that the designer uses to examine problems, and to over-exemplify the value in these aesthetics is to fail to understand the reason why you would enhance them.

and what would happen if Japan would've played England? both teams are white and red, any white would ruin your design instantly, and you cant have both red.... i'm going to agree with everyone else, not a thought out redesign. but, good job.. i guess

Interesting redesign. Better than most "unsolicited" redesigns I've seen lately.

Some of you need to calm down. Obviously there's quite a bit wrong with this, but it's a step in the right direction. We can only hope sports presentations start adopting new design standards. ESPN recently debuted a flatter look for Sportscenter.

Saying "this is shit" is unwarranted and just rude.

It's hard to believe these guys even watch the matches. I don't agree with their "problems" and definitely don't agree with the proposed solutions, it seems to make things worse.

I was hoping for something more along the lines of fixing the Brazil World Cup logo which they spend the first paragraph berating. Then never mentioning again.

The "redesign" was just a few of the thousands of onscreen design elements.

Flat design is a trend in web design not TV.

I think the worst thing about this redesign is putting the score in the left corner without any justification. I believe the score should be always centered because it feels more “balanced” between the two teams on the field, and the corners are usually reserved for the logo in almost every TV channel, so you CANT use that space.

You need to watch TV before redesigning for it.

This is terrible. Sorry not sorry.