Joel Kennedy

After some careful consideration, I have decided to start using Notion to upload all my research for my both my IXD303 and IXD304 Projects.  Below you will find a link to my Notion Page:

Overall, I am happy with how this project turned out and I had a lot of fun completing it.  So, what’s next for the Fun-Da-Metals app?  For me I would want to start by adding more Elements to the app, giving more content for kids to learn in class.  This would then also mean by adding new Molecule Characters as well as Illustrations. I would also like to add a Trophy/Achievement Cabinet so whenever you complete the quiz and ‘Capture’ an element, you can go back to view it at any time.  Finally, I could also think about expanding the app to work on both on a Website as well as a Phone app, making it more accessible for people who may not have Tablets.  

After creating the Screen & Prototype in Adobe XD, I then created a Style Guide for Fun-Da-Metals showcasing the Application Name, Fonts Used, Colour Palette, Buttons and finally the Illustrations which you can view below:  

Once I created all the screens for my Elements App, I started to start the Prototyping Process within Adobe XD.  By me creating this Prototype, it allows me not only to think more carefully about UI/UX, but it will also allow me to see what my application would look like if I was to create and publish it within the app store:

Below are some of the Final Screens For my Elements Project called Fun-Da-Metals:

Home Screen:

Introduction Screen:

Element Selection Screen:

Aluminum Screen:

Zinc Screen:

Platinum Quiz Screen:

After the critique, I decided to go back into Adobe Illustrator to start improving on my final Illustrations as well as creating more for the other elements.  As I still wanted to use to see him colour scheme for the illustrations, I decided to use an off black outline for each illustration.  Not only does the off-black outline work with all the colours I use, but it also helps the illustrations stand out more on the pages.  Below you can find all the Final Illustration for Fun-Da-Metals: 

Gold Illustrations:

Lead Illustrations:

Aluminium Illustrations:

Platinum Illustrations:

Zinc Illustrations:

During My Presentation before the Christmas Break, I had the chance to present the current progress of the Fun-Da-Metals App.  During this, I was able to receive some valuable feedback to help improve my overall designs of the app.  In the end, my tutors were very pleased with the work I presented and told me that there were only a couple of things that I need to change to help Improve my overall work. 

The first thing they mentioned was to slightly adjust the spacing of some of the attributes and elements on the screens to give them more breathing room.  They also wanted me to continue working on the Molecule Illustrations as at the time I only had a couple completed.  They also wanted me to adjust some of the shading to the Molecules to help them stand out more against the coloured backgrounds.  Finally, they suggested to me that I could re-work some of the illustration to help them stand out more on the page.  They suggested that I should add some contrasting colours and or outlines to the artwork to make them stand out on the page even more.

After creating some of my Illustrations, I then decided to go into Adobe XD to start creating some of the screens of my app.  I decided to create the Elements selection page as well as two of the Element Pages (Gold & Lead) as this will be a good showcase to show for my critique to show what type of direction, I’m planning on taking my application.

Similar to some other projects, I am again using Adobe XD as my Prototyping software, once again mainly due to the fact it’s the one piece of software I have most experience on, as well as finding it easy to use and set up a Prototype for.  Below you can find Three of my Screens for Fun-Da-Metals:  

Element Selection Screen:

Let’s Meet Gold Screen:

Let’s Meet Lead Screen:

A big thing that I have to think about for my product is the packaging as I need to make sure that my product gets to my customers in mint condition.  For my packaging currently, I was able to buy some bellyband to put around my A5 Print Cards, not only does this make them look more presentable, it also holds all the cards together, so they don’t get damaged in transit.  For the actual parcel, I am currently using bubble wrapped letters which will reduce any impact damage if that occurs in Transit.  

The next stage of my project is to create the promotional website for me to showcase and sell my product.  After careful consideration, I decided to create my website using an online service called Landen/Umso.  The main reason I decided to go with Landen/Umso is due to the fact that it is a really easy online tool to use to create a professional looking website to sell my products.  

I started off by initially setting up the document by going through and selecting the appropriate answers to the different questions that the tool asks, once completed it then generates a basic website Template allowing me to edit and add different attributes to make it unique to me. 

  Once I had the basic building blocks of the site, I was then able to start adding more attributes, such as my own images, buttons, fonts etc to the website.  In the end, I ended up having 3 sections within my website, the Home Page, the About Section/Gallery and the Pricing Section.  

The biggest difference that I changed compared to my mockup was the introduction of the Gallery.  I decided to add this after thinking back to my initial Market Research where both of the sites had a high emphasis on showcasing their work.  This will also give the customer time to look at all of the individual designs before making their choices on what to buy. 

 Finally, for my Pricing Section, the only things that I changed from my mockup was that I readjusted the different tiers/bundles that are available with The Oculus Project.  It is also worth mentioning that the button links will take you a Gumroad page as that’s where I decided to choose where to sell my product.

Since the critique in week 6, I decided to go back and create another website wireframe as I wasn’t entirely happy with my Adobe XD Mockup, so what do you do, you go back to paper designs.  I tried to keep the simplicity of the website, but I also wanted to include a gallery of my work as looking back to my initial market research, in both the websites that I looked at, there was a heavy emphasis in showcasing the work.  Below you can find my Refined Wireframes: 

I decided to revisit my price ranges of my products as not only was I not super happy on them, but I also made some slight adjustments to what I was actually selling.  I made the decision to currently just focus on the Prints and Stickers instead of the Books.  This just meant that I had more time to properly create designs that I was happy with.  You can find the new prices of my products below:

The Oculus Project: Single A5 Print & Sticker Combo - £5 

The Oculus Project: Bundle Packages (Includes 5 Card Designs & Stickers) - £20 

The Oculus Project: Full Circle Bundle (Includes all 15 Card Designs & Stickers) - £40

With these new prices, I still feel like they are reasonable and affordable as well as making them stand out as I’m now offering discounted offers with the bundles.  

Now that I’ve made all my designs, I needed to start to think how and where I wanted to get my products manufactured.  I needed to ensure that wherever I chose was a reliable service that also delivers high quality products.  I decided to initially think about the A5 Print Cards as they are the main focus on my Project.  

I decided to do a bit of online research to see which company not only offers the best service but also the best prices.  The first place I looked was an online Printing Service called MOO.  MOO was offering 100 A5 Print Cards for a total £69.00 including VAT.  This worked out roughly as £0.58 per card which is very reasonable.  

I also decided to look somewhere a bit more locally.  The next Printing Company I decided to look at was Cathedral Graphics here in Belfast.  I was able to have an email conversation with one of their employees where I was able to find out that I could be able to get 105 Print Cards (7 of each design) for a total of £25.00.  This then meant that each A5 Print card only costed roughly £0.24.  

In the end I decided to go with Cathedral Graphics as I’ve used their services before and knew that they were a reliable source for high quality outcomes.  

I then decided to revisit MOO for the stickers as I have heard from friends and other people online that they’re one of the best services for Stickers.  By researching on their website, I was able to find out that it would cost me £19.98 (ex. VAT) for 104 stickers.  This meant that it only costs me £0.19 per sticker.  Overall, I ended up spending £48.98 for 105 A5 Print Cards and 104 Print Stickers.  

To make my application more Fun and Appealing, I decided to create several illustrations within the application to showcase where you can find each Element in day-to-day life.  For these illustrations, I want each set of illustrations to match the same colour scheme as the selected element.  So, for example, the Illustrations for the Gold Element will all be in the Yellow Colour scheme and the Lead element Illustrations will all be in the Blue Colour Scheme.  Below you can find my first set of Illustrations that I created, however these illustrations are just my first versions so I could potentially go back and adjust them to make them better:    

Gold Coins:

Gold Bricks:

Gold Nuggets: 

Paint:

Car Battery: 

Kids Toys:

As My Application is Targeted towards kids, I wanted to include some sort of mascots characters that would appeal to kids.  I was able to notice during my research that a lot of these Kids Mascots where very simple in designs with quirky attributes to them, whether that’s with facial expressions or other visual extensions.  For initial Research, I decided to look at different types of Kids Character Designs, mainly looking at the concept of Monsters as I feel like the facial expression I could use and translate onto the Molecules: 

 After researching some existing Character Designs, I decided to very quickly rough sketch out some ideas that I had on my head.  These designs just helped me create a basic concept which I intended to develop more:    

I started to develop some of my designs more on paper first before going into Illustrator, just to help me ensure that I was happy with what direction I wanted to take the designs, which you can also find below:

Finally, I then went into Adobe Illustrator to start digitising my Designs.  I wanted to ensure I was sticking with my colour scheme also, hence why I ended up using a selected colour and its shades as the main colour for each illustration:

For the next stage of my App Branding is the Colour Scheme.  From the start of this project, I knew I wanted to select a colour scheme that was bright, vibrant and appealing to kids.  By looking at some research, I was able to notice that a fair amount of kids apps go for the more traditional block colours to keep it simplistic instead of using Gradients etc.  It is also known that kids tend to be more appealed to bright colours such as Reds, Yellows & Blues compared to more Muted/Pastel Colours.

With this information in mind, I decided to go onto Coolors.com to create my own colour palette, sticking with the brightly coloured Yellows, Blues, Reds, Oranges & Purples: 

I also decided to use 6 different shades of each colours as this gives me more room to work with for not only when I’m creating the pages for my App, but also when it comes to Illustrating different Images as well as my Molecule Designs:  

Finally, I decided to create the coloured version of my Wordmark to give it more life instead of having it as a plain solid black colour.  This then also makes it stand out more breathing some life into the Project: 

After generating more rough sketches, I was able to take more designs into illustrator to create the digitised versions.  Overall, I now have 15 Design Print Cards which I personally feel like is a great amount to have, especially as this is me just starting up this project.  Overall, I really enjoyed the process in researching minimalistic art then taking what I found and then creating my own personal ideas.  I also really enjoyed the development side of things from starting with a small sketch before creating fully fledged designs.  

Below you can see all of my designs within The Oculus Project as well as a link to a PDF: