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Creative Block
App Concept and Prototype
Date
2021
Client
Discipline
Personal Project
Visual Identity, Graphic, Print, UI/UX Design
Audience
Design studios and potential clients.
Brief
As graphic design students going into industry I realised that it is not easy to make connections with people in industry, especially for shy students. There is also a lot of pressure when trying to make those connections.
The brief was to develop an app with the aim of targeting or creating some form of creative community.
Solution
I created Design Block, an app to match creatives and agencies/studios together in a more casual process, where the work speaks for itself. The idea is that the mini portfolio is seen first and people can then decide if they like their work want to get in contact with the creator.
Design Block aims to empower our users with the confidence to share their work with others in a safe, accessible environment. It is important to be Inclusive as all creative industries should be valued.
Logo
The main criteria for this logo was that it had to relate back to the 3D cube concept and be simple enough to be legible as an app icon.
The name of the app, 'Creative Block' is a play on the common phrase amongs creatives which can be described as the inability to access one's internal creativity. Taken literally though it is simply stating that this app is a Creative Block (cube). One of the most common reasons for creative block is the fear of imperfection which the app aims to overcome by providing a constant source of inspiration whilst also providing a platform to have meaningful conversations about work with other creatives.
The logo is comprised of 5 isometric cubes arranged within a triangular grid in order to create a C shape showing 2D and 3D perspective.
Prototype
I developed a working prototype of the entire app in Adobe XD. This included the creation of a set of custom icons with consistantly square/ angular features based on the logo.
As this was the first time attempting to learn to prototype I didnt realise how limited XD actually was and the fact that it isnt designed to create an entire app prototype, only to display different elements of an app.
Thus I ran into trouble while animating the transitions between each element as every single screen that had animated elements needed to have every other element from every other screen that needed to be animated. As a result every screen had many many invisible layers hidden off the sides of the artboard ready to be animated in to frame whenever needed.
This made the design process extremely slow and complicated.
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Low Fidelity
Sketches
These sketches display a few potential layout designs for various screens and transition animations, consisting of what info should be prioritised and how they should be structured.
For example: When moving between screens, the whole app would act like a big cube/block, with every changing element rotating out of or into the visible screen.
Colour Filters
At this point I had already decided I wanted to base the colour, filter system on the colours of the adobe suite.
I first began sorting the colours into the accurate spectrum order.
I then began developing what I wanted the category selection screen to look loke and how they would interact with the other colours in the freeform gradient.
This freeform gradient element would be used throughout the app for various purposes. Ranging from category filters on the match page, to seeing what a designers specialty industry was as their profile background without having to actually read anything.
High Fidelity Screens
Sketches were then quickly developed into high fidelity screens in Adobe XD ready to be turned into wireframes and prototypes.
Print Adverts
The ads needed to be simple and to the point as the vibrant, freeform gradient backgrounds are already eye catching enough.
The core idea of the app is to provide a platform for people to make connections with other creatives and professionals in a stressless environment.
So that's what the ads are focused on. A set of slogans stating how easy it is to connect with likeminded people in any and all industries and for any reason be it to learn or to network or to find job opportunities.
It's all about connecting creators with other creators.
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