Adobe CC – Lorena Parra

My journey designing a Mobile App has certainly been an interesting one. From the ideation stage to design through low-fidelitywireframes, to higher fidelity work using platforms such as Adobe XD or Figma, until the final result is reached.

I have made many discoveries since I first started designing and developing digital products. And after completing this project, I have to say that my approach to design has changed a lot. For instance, at the beginning I would see projects as a clearly defined set of steps to follow from beginning to end. However, I have found that design and development are more often than not, way more complicated than that. After learning about Agile Project Management and collaborating with my peers, it’s become clear to me how necessary it is to have multiple iterations. throughout the development process.

After finishing this greyscale wireframe on Adobe XD, I did some usability testing on my app, and made corrections to it accordingly. I truly believe that it is fundamental to include this step in your process, because after working on a project for so long, it is necessary to gain some outside perspective of it. That way, you notice the things that seemed to be obvious to you might not be so obvious for the user.

Additionally, this experience has allowed me to experiment a lot with generating a colour palette and logo design for a brand.

*Selected Colour Palette for*
*Pippin Orchards App.*

Pippin Orchards
Logo Design on
Adobe Illustrator

Below, you can find the finished prototype of my app.

Finished Prototype of Pippin Orchards App.

If you asked me, “what is the most important thing to keep in mind when designing an app?” I would have to say that it is fundamental to know your target audience well, and understand that they’re ultimately who your product is for. Keeping this in mind, we can make more effective decisions by focusing on the purpose of the app through the lens of a user’s wants and needs, and stray away from personal biases that might not apply to all cases.

But most importantly, don’t make your user think!

Back when I was in my senior year of High School, I wrote this short story titled “The Angel’s Lullaby.” It was for my Writer’s Craft course, one of my favourites back in the day. It was also my most ambitious work to that date.

The story follows the journey of Rose, a teenage girl who has recently lost her grandmother and is trying to reconnect with her through a magical music box she left behind before her departure. Rose will have to face a series of challenges and lessons before being able to reach her goal of reaching her beloved grandma once again. It’s a story about grief, healing, family bonds, and growth.

I was quite proud of it when I first wrote it, and when the chance came up for me to design my own book cover, this story immediately came to mind.

*“The Angel’s Lullaby”* | Book Cover Design

In my design I chose to incorporate key elements of the story and play with the words in the title. For instance, I used cursive letters that seem playful yet refined, adding a halo on top of the “A” in “Angel’s” to emphasize that word and transmit some of the narrative. I chose a sky to maintain a celestial theme, but chose for it to be a night sky, as it references the “Lullaby” part of the title.

In terms of my symbols, I used stars (big and small, in different shades of yellow) for both, my front and back covers, and played with the sizes of the stars, so that I could include texts for my positive reviews inside of them. Additionally, one of my favourite creative choices that I made with this cover design was making the text in the back cover the shape of a crescent moon. Finally, for the branding, I used a music note as a logo, to subtly create a play on the musical aspect of the title.

Overall, it was a fun experience revisiting some of my old work and thinking about how I could reinvent it and turn it into something completely different while preserving the essence of the original concept. It is quite rewarding to see your own growth through your work.