Mobile App Prototype for Sketches of Miles
The first assignment in Professional Design Practices, an advanced studio course on special topics, was a do-over project. After looking at my portfolio, my professor who also taught the branding course last semester suggested that I redo Sketches of Miles. It would give me a chance to finesse the typography. At first I was not thrilled because Sketches of Miles was a side project to teach myself HTML5 and CSS3 a few years ago. The typography was rough because it use design using CSS rather than Photoshop or Illustrator. The do-over project was to take a few sketches and make them into a series of posters.
After spending the weekend thinking deeper into the project, I came up with a different concept. Rather than going from the web back to print, I wanted to go forward to an app, particularly for the iPad. Instead of me making the sketches, I wanted to design an interactive app that would allow Miles’ freaks like myself to create their own sketches.
The app is very straightforward. Once fans downloaded the app, they could sign up using Facebook, Twitter or Google credential. Once they logged in they become the users. On the home screen they could see a gallery of sketches that other fans have created. They also have an option to create their own. I designed a set of very simple user interface to let the users play around on their iPad. They could change the texts, draw their own sketches or import graphics into the app. Once they are done sketching, they could share their work with other fans as well as other social media networks.
The app turned out to be a fun project. After creating the interface for the app, I also created a handful of sketches to show what users can do with the app. With the timeline as well as the scope of the class, which focuses only on design, I only get to do the prototype of the app. Besides, I don’t have the mobile development skills to create a robust app like that. It is definitely a great project to learn iOS programming. Maybe that would be down the line. Still, the prototype is worth checking out.