The objective was to design an iPad application for a website with a large amount of content. The application needed to be cohesive with its current branding styles and utilize the features of mobile platforms.
Behance is the leading online platform to showcase and discover creative work. It is widely known for its rich content and amazing designers from around the world, allowing users to follow and thumbs up favorite projects. I wanted to carry that experience from the desktop to the iPad so I decided to use a grid based layout for the gallery. Throughout the application I wanted to keep the navigation simple, clean, and easy to find for both new and returning visitors while keeping the format uniformed with site.
Would love to hear your thoughts about the concept in the comments below!
Recently, Microsoft launched a demo video of what the future could possibly look like. I know what you’re thinking, it’s Microsoft right? Well, you should probably watch it first before you dismiss it because it is eerie really, and quite possibly not too far away. If you really think about, 5 years ago the thought about doing video chats via mobile phone’s seemed laughable. Now it has become the norm and seems a thing of the past. Very similarly, this video could project what the future will look like. Read and watch at what Microsoft has to say.
Watch how future technology will help people make better use of their time, focus their attention, and strengthen relationships while getting things done at work, home, and on the go. (Release: 2011)
Crazy, right? Just wait…it’s still crazy, right? Yea, I know. I thought the exact same thing. It’s inevitable to not think of the future in that way with the way technology and touch-screen devices have created. No longer does touch-screen belong to a smartphone or tablet, but now it becomes part of our everyday environment. It becomes part of us.
It’s interesting to note though that Microsoft isn’t the first one to think this. Many designers have been talking about touch-screen homes for years. Earlier this year Corning released a similar video to Microsoft’s that touched on the everyday lifestyle, and it’s called A Day Made of Glass. Here’s their video:
So you can see a similar trend here. Everything around us has become the subject, we are the creators, and technology is providing a more efficient way to be productive regardless of where we are. Touchscreen devices will not be limited to smartphones and tablets, but rather it will be expanded to our homes, workplaces, commutes, and surroundings. It will be everywhere.
What do you think? Is it scary real? Or did you already expect it? Write your thoughts in the comments below.
I recently wrote a blog post on Beyond Traditional’s blog about how Facebook’s new timeline feature could potentially change the way Brands market themselves on Facebook.
If you’ve been following the news lately you may have heard of Facebook’s new Timeline feature, which is currently in beta, that will be implemented into user profiles over the coming weeks. This is a huge stepping stone for Facebook as it allows the user to upload a custom photo and use it as a feature photo or banner that will be displayed on their profile. For a preview of what this looks like check out this demo:
So, what does this have to do with your brand and what does it mean for your Facebook fan page? Quite simply, it means more control over how your brand is viewed:
1. Control Your First Impression
First Impressions are everything. Within 1 to 2 seconds of viewing a page, a user will decide if they’re going to stay and explore, or hit the dreaded back button. Choosing a visually stunning cover photo to draw in fans rather than a blurry, pixelated or oversimplified (read: logo only) image is a poor brand signal
2. Bring New Products or Features Center Stage
The cover photo can be easily replaced to rotate out new products, advertising campaigns or promotions. This is the first image people will see, so keeping it relevant and fresh is key.
3. Create a Unified Brand Experience
A brand’s profile photo and cover photo should work together, not clash or compete for attention, to create the perfect brand experience for consumers. We like to use the profile photo as the brand’s logo, so that when comments, photos, or other content is posted users easily identify the poster, while using a large campaign or graphic image as the cover photo.
If you haven’t seen the new layout, check out some of these designs I created for some of our favorite brands. Let me know your thoughts on this topic.
Note: These designs have not been approved by the client and they have no affiliation with the designer. They are purely samples.
So, do you think this will change Facebook for brands? Is it worth putting effort into it? Will it work? Why won’t it? Write your thoughts in the comment box.
Over the course of the 3 months that I’ve been doing some heavy coding with jQuery, CSS3 and custom JavaScript files, I’ve been referred back to a new site called Codrops. This site is full of fresh and new jQuery and CSS3 scripts that will keep you coming back. My favorite portion of the site is the Tutorials section as they give you step-by-step instructions on how to create cool effects with current trends.
Look around the site, if you’re into web development or web design, there’s plenty of information that will feed your nerdy heart. Share the site with co-workers and friends, soon enough this site will be the new Web Design Ledger. You never know.
During the summer I had the privilege of designing a mobile application that would serve both the iPhone and iPad platforms, and it was one where I had complete control over the subject and art direction. I’ve always wanted to start designing for mobile devices, whether it was personal or business, and never really had time for it until recently. I’ve been both an iPhone & iPad owner when they first came out, so I’ve had experience with a touch-screen interface that has changed culture.
I am, to some degree, a foodie. I love reading recipes, eating new dishes (sometimes with hesitation), and love exploring new restaurants. To feed my hungry heart the App Store has hundreds of food apps that serve the foodie community, apps such as Epicurious, Big Oven, Urbanspoon, Yelp, and the Food Network. All of these applications were awesome but they lacked one great feature and that was to have an all-in-one application. If I wanted to look for recipes I had to use Epicurious, if I wanted to find a good restaurant I had to use Yelp, if I wanted to search for a cooking term I had to use Dictionary, if I wanted to create a shopping list I had to use Things. As I started using these great apps, I started to see a big hole that could serve both the foodie community and those on the iOS platforms.
With that being said, I started sketching out my ideas I had for this application that would have all of these features together. I wanted this be a one-stop app for anyone looking for food, so I came up with the name Foodielogik.
The main purpose of Foodielogik is to provide quick, easy, and efficient food results no matter the category. The user can search for bars around the area or look for new recipes to entertain people, and Foodielogik will present multiple options for the user to choose from. The main features of Foodielogik are Restaurants, Recipes, Glossary, Shopping List, and Favorites. From these features the user can access information with only a tap away. Foodielogik is the fastest way to find information for your foodie lifestyle, no matter the subject.
After going through multiple ideas and scrapping multiple layouts I decided to stick with what seemed more logical. From there I chose to my colors, which originally were red & green to reflect bell peppers, but after getting feedback from other students the red was reminding them too much of the Food Network. So I decided to stick with an earthly lime-green. Below are some of the screenshots of the iPhone application.
iPhone version
For the iPad I wanted to keep the flow very similar but transform that experience to the iPad without loosing it’s main features. Below are some screenshots fo the iPad application, as well as a demo that shows the functionality of the app.
iPad version
Foodielogik iPad Demo
I would welcome any feedback, comments, or questions. Leave a comment below and we can have a discussion. Does this seem like an application you would use? Why or why not? Is there something you wish it had? What is it missing?
Ran into this awesome infographic site, thanks to an online buddy, that was created by Frank Chimero. The thing I love about this site is the way you scroll and the information and images start moving, making the user interact with it. This makes the users more attentive to read what is being displayed. I might start working on some interactive infographics myself, this looks like a nifty new way to display information.
“Frank Chimero graphic is a designer, teacher, writer, and creative person in Portland, Oregon. His fascination with the creative process, curiosity, and visual experience informs all of his work. Each piece is part of an exploration in finding wit, surprise, honesty, and joy in the world around us, then, trying to document those things.”
If you haven’t heard about Google+ yet, then you might be missing out on something spectacular. Odds are you probably have, given that news travels faster on the internet than on the television or the morning paper. Last week Google released a social media hurricane integrating all current Google accounts with their new platform, Google+. This is equivalent to Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, etc. and is aimed to have users share information no matter where they’re at on Google. Watch this video to see the demo:
So that is Google+ if you hadn’t already heard. Most recently, Google has finally released its iOS version for the iPhone and iTouch devices. You can download the app for free in the iTunes App Store.
It will be interesting to see how this changes the social media game, seeing as Google+ is a mix of all things. This definitely brings competition to what’s already out there, causing Twitter and Facebook to come up with new features to keep their user base. But chances are that Google+ is targeting the tech savy group with it’s similar news feed like Twitter. Let’s just hope that my grandma doesn’t sign up for an account, although I love my grandma very dearly, it’s not for everyone.
Also as well, as of today all my posts on my blog will have all links to share them on Google+, Twitter and Facebook. This was a much needed feature I’ve been meaning to add and now seems like it was feeding. You can add me to your circles +Miguel Solorio.
What do you think about Google+? Do you think Google+ is the Facebook-Killer? Is it just a hype? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
This has been a long dreaded school project that has had me pulling my hair more often than any other project I’ve ever worked, and most of it was due to its broad requirements. For this project we are to create a Typography Based Website that has typography as the focal point, which sounds really simple and easy but as we started discussing amongst each other we’ve found how hard it is to come up with design ideas. I decided to keep mine simple and serve as an adventure into the typography world.
I love typography…I just hate designing for it.
My site was going to be a Typography news/source/gallery site where users will be updated on new things related to type, be able to view a “found type” gallery, and be able to download free fonts (provided by Font Squirrel).
For the design process, one of the ways I wanted to emphasize on the type was to use color at a minium, in doing so I used a variation of my favorite colors: black & white. Recently I came across a very sleek and nice typeface called Avenir, in which I used as the main typeface for the site alongside Myriad Pro for content copy. For the most part of the site I chose a 2-column grid, very much like a blog, so that while reading on the home or freebies section users would be able to easily filter each category or type they would want to see.
Below are my mockups and final designs of the site and would welcome any critique or comments. Like it? Hate it? Don’t know what to think? Write me a comment. The only way to grow is to be corrected & critiqued, and am open to it. Cheers!
This is a project that I’ve been working on for a while, which started about a year ago, and finally got to tying the loose ends of this project. I am an avid Netflix movie watcher, I probably consume about 10hrs a week of movies & tv series, so I am very familiar with Netflix’s website. One of the biggest things that bugged me about their site was its blinding-red background color, and the way they choose to layout their site. I figured why not take a shot at re-designing their site and possibly include it in my portfolio. The more I thought about it the more I got excited to start working on it, so I started out with creating a mood board.
Mood boards are suppose to express the look, feel, and environment of the site, this includes typography, color choice, images, buttons, anything that will get the point across of what you want the user to experience.
Netflix Mood Board
For this site I wanted to focus around families, both children and parents, who are switching from renting movies from Blockbuster and are joining the online world. One of my main focus was light colors and Netflix’s red to focus on certain elements, as well as creating more space to allow the user to feel comfortable.
Netflix Wireframes
I then went on to creating the wireframes of the site to get a good sense of the website’s layout and navigation. At this point they’re all just greyscale and the focus is on the layout. I really wanted to get rid of the bulgy header that displayed all of the user’s recently watched movies and fit it into one line, adding a “See All” button that would slide the content down if they wished to see more. I also used a horizontal navigation bar that stretches across the whole page instead of using the classic centered navigation.
Netflix Design
With the final design, I really wanted the red to be the focus of the call to action; whether that be to change pages, rate a movie, play or add a movie to the que. Space was a big obstacle to overcome, especially when adding more movies to a collection, so I went with using the white & grey to lighten the look and feel lighter.
Overall, I’m somewhat pleased with the design. I have a feeling that I’ll be coming back to this & tweaking more things. But for now, I will leave it as is and welcome any critique or advice.
Just recently read a really good article on Mashable that dissected “The Daily Deals Bandwagon” and found it all quite interesting. Living in a metropolitan area for almost 2 years now, I have seen a large number of local “daily deals” services like Groupon & LivingSocial where local small businesses invest into. It’s interesting to see that most of these local deals aren’t as impressive as the leading giants of online coupons, mostly because they aren’t always able to give +50% off to their customers, especially when their membership base is less than 1 million. Nonetheless, this is an awesome time to see these online companies make millions and billions of dollars with only having an online presence.
I’m interested to see where this year will lead the online community, especially with Facebook Deals & Google Offers, 2 giants wanting a cut of the pie as well. I also wonder who else is next to try and get a cut as well, it wouldn’t surprise me if Foursquare or Yelp try and get bigger & better deals to offer, but only time will tell.
Take a look at the infographic that dissects the daily deals bandwagon, courtesy of OnlineMBA.com. To view a larger version of the infographic, use this link.
I often use StumbleUpon to find useful links related to web, design, and art. While on there I stumbled upon, hehe, a campaign composed of different photograph’s by Tom Hussey. They are very inspiring and clever, thought I’d share it here.
Here’s a e-mail piece I worked on while working with an e-mail marketing firm in Lower Queen Anne. This client wanted to keep their branded colors throughout their newsletter, while also using their product pieces as a focal point. Throughout the e-mail, you can see that there are links to their products and services, as well as a photo of the sales person who last worked with the customer to create personalization and familiarity. The client loved this piece and I thought it was a good piece to post.
Earlier in the year I created a magazine spread for one of my favorite bands, The Devil Wears Prada, and was featuring them in a popular magazine, Relevant Magazine, which always displays nice, clean and clear designs. After doing research on the different magazine layouts I decided to go through the clean style, one that many magazines do like The Rolling Stones. The first page was to be different than the rest of the pages, going with an all-black background and with 2-columns. The rest of the layout uses a 3-column grid with large images to create depth. This was a fun project that I really enjoyed creating and researching.
A dear friend of mine, Olesya Grabovskaya, and I were in talks about creating a personal website for her as she’s approaching a high demand for her designs. She is currently a student at the Art Institute of Seattle working towards her BFA degree in Fashion Design. Her designs tell a unique story, one that catches your eyes right away. Olesya gets her inspiration from European and Asian culture to create an edgy Eur-Asian fusion look. I did some research on the look and feel of what she would want her site to portray, one that matches her clothing style. I decided to go with a clean style that focused on her work, making it the focal point.
Below are my are final sketches of what I intended to make, and also the final output of what it looks like. This site will be included into my Portfolio pieces, and will be built as a CMS.
About a month ago I started planning on modeling a living room in Maya, one that would be a bit challenging but still contain its aesthetics. I love interior design and architecture, so taking on this project was definitely a fun adventure. Above is my reference image of my living room & kitchen that I was to model. It took me about 3 weeks to accomplish this, and below are snapshots from my process along the way. The last image is the final rendered image. Hope you enjoy!
Decided to create a Saleen video commercial due to the amount of footage that was provided. It wasn’t long before I looked online to find hundreds, if not thousands, of other Saleen video commercials. All of the other commercials were created by students like myself in other video classes, and I wanted to create a more unique video incorporating some gradient effects and textures. Using the sound as a base for my cuts, I aligned all edits around them. Anyways, hope you enjoy.
I’ve had a few people ask me about the wallpaper I had on my laptop and phone and decided to post a link to where I found them. These were done by Alberto Seveso on the Behance Network and has provided a downloaded link so you can use them as wallpaper.
For my 3D Modeling class, our final is to model a real life scene, one to our liking. I remember cycling through an amazing number of architectural designs and came across one that just blew my mind. It was this modern apartment that’s located in Darling Point, Sydney, Australia designed by Stanic Harding. It’s a circular apartment that sits on the 16th floor of an 18 floor building. The design is beautifully made, taking advantage of the circular apartment and making each room an awe inspiring beauty. My favorite is the kitchen with the circular island, and there’s a shot where the sun cracks through the windows which create this amazing atmosphere that makes you never want to leave this place. Love the whole design and color tones throughout the entire apartment, now my only wish is to hire Stanic Harding to design my dream home.
Found some awesome custom handlettering posters by the guys over at Periscope. Truly amazing creativity, check out their portfolio for more of their work.
This is the poster I designed for my Cultural Theory class, in which we are to market to woman in the 1920s. I used a fake company called creative, yea i know i’m very creative </sarcasm>, and tried to add a vintage feel. Here’s the pitch that I wrote for the client:
It’s the beginning of the 1920’s and a new woman was born, one that is capable of doing just as much as a man is. They feel as they are filled with potential and aren’t stepping down; this woman smokes, drinks, dances, and does the work a man can. She feels like there isn’t anything she can’t do, nothing too much for her, always taking risks, shocking everyone including herself.
In order to get the attention of these young women, you need to show them a reflection of which they see inside of them. You need to show them a flapper, because ultimately that is whom they see themselves as; that woman with short hair & a short dress that’s sitting at the restaurant drinking & slips outside for a cig. If we show them a picture of themselves, then we get their attention, and using familiar typefaces, color & contrast, they will very well listen to whatever we have to say.
For my Cultural Theory class, one of my projects was to design a poster for the 1920s and was targeted for the woman after the war. While doing some research of the different poster styles, I came across a couple interesting posters that really portraid that era. Though most of the posters were created during the beginning of the war, the style represents what the culture saw at that time.
I was looking at some interesting Black & White photography in Flickr’s blog, which give me plenty of inspiration. It’s interesting to see how much a photograph can tell without color or words. It paints its own picture. Click on the images to view the Photographers.
Finally I have completed coding my blog! It’s not the first, but it is one of my custom blogs I designed for my site. Glad you can stopped by and hope you enjoy what you find around the site. This is an ongoing project of mine in which I hope to update on a monthly basis.
As technology grows and as my joy of living in the city of Seattle increases, I will posting things related to the web, the city life, random rants and some photography sessions I hope to start soon.
I’m currently finishing up my 2nd year in school at The Art Institute of Seattle and am always constantly busy studying & learning while I work and try to make a living. As the winter quarter progresses, I also hope to start posting new material to this blog and towards my portfolio section. I’m always trying to learn and adapt to new technologies, and what best way to see my progress than my own blog! I really hope this blog can serve to others as a source for new technologies and inspiration. Looking forward to the next couple of months, glad you could be apart of it.
- Miguel
About Me
Miguel Solorio is a web designer & developer living in Seattle, WA. He is currently attending the Art Institute of Seattle and majoring in Web Design & Interactive Media.
