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Check out our first Designer Spotlight featuring Redshift’s Director of UX Scott Lambridis.

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Inspiration / Creation Vol. 1

As designers we are always looking at things that inspire us. Eventually those inspirations manifest in our work. We asked “what would happen if we take inspiration from what other Redshift designers find inspiring?”

Each visual designer presented an inspiration: a book, a website, a video. Then another designer spent about an hour creating something referencing that piece of inspiration. Here are the results of our explorations.

Inspiration / Creation #1

Inspiration from Jennie: Flatland, by Edwin A. Abbott the Epilogue print run

Creation by Alex: Stock image animated with AfterEffects.

Inspiration / Creation #2

Inspiration from Jennie Transparent Opening Credits

Creation by Emma

Inspiration / Creation #3

Inspiration from Alex The Next Rembrandt

Creation by Annie The modern day master of light and shadow, Kim Kardashian West.

Inspiration / Creation #4

Inspiration from Bobby “Somewhere” by Disasterpeace Creation by Steffan Somewhere animation

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Last week some of our designers participated in a photo walk, held by Creative Mornings. 

https://creativemornings.com/talks/500px-photo-walk-with-oscar-nilsson-nowrongwaysf

It was refreshing to get up and moving early in the morning. Alex, Annie, and Bronwen were treated with a new perspective on San Francisco and some puppy love.

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The World of Charles and Ray Eames at the Barbican

 The World of Charles and Ray Eames just closed at the Barbican in London. The show was a thorough retrospective of Design’s power couple–the Eames. One of our visual designer’s had the chance to fly over the pond to check it out in real life. 

The show spanned the entirety of the couple’s prolific careers from their military splint prototypes for the Army to their large scale multimedia installations with IBM. 

It was amazing to see the breadth of their work and their holistic view of design, in practice professionally and personally. Unfortunately the show didn’t allow the audience to interact with the pieces. It was unbearable to watch a child look at the Eames Toy longingly without the opportunity to play with something that was designed to be played with. 

Either way, it was fun to see a lot of process and the behind-the-scenes of a relationship that seemed both personally and professionally fulfilling. 

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Why should the artists of 1920′s Paris have all the fun? Exquisite Corpse is an exercise in creativity they fashioned that we can enjoy and learn from today! 

Draw, pass, draw, pass. You get a small snippet of your co-creator’s drawings to spark inspiration and build on. Resulting in a radical new thing that broadens perspectives and understanding of the definition of ‘body’.Or refine the exercise to define a product. In each third of your paper have a prompt “What are ways to address this [need, feature, use case, etc].” Write and sketch your idea. Pass to the next person and repeat. When you review the Frakenstein-esque products focus on the juxtaposition of how different people approached the problem. Refine the concepts and slowly shape the radical into the aspirational.At Redshift, we went for full creative release, using the same mark-making tools to strike a balance between order and chaos. 

A sampling of our findings: three instances of written text, six human faces, three sets of stars, two cats, two flowers, sixteen individual feet, three sets of tentacles, four non-representational beings, seven expanses of ground, four disembodied eyes, and two snails.

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Move over, SFClimates!

With daylight savings under full swing, we at REDSHIFT are certainly looking forward that extra hour of sunshine, which means more bike rides, more beach days, and more evenings at Dolores Park. That’s why we were excited when our former colleague, Anna Bleker, created a nifty little app that visualizes SF's microclimates by time of day. Aside from the adorable illustrations, the genius lies in the hidden interface slider that reveals itself as the user taps on the screen. As for future app updates, Anna plans to add a fog layer and different looks to show when it’s raining or overcast. We can’t wait!

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Huckleberry! Redshift’s bodyguard, mascot and door stop. 

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The fine folks at “The Juice Shop” came over and gave us a tasting. It’s all about the  A+ Bright Green.

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Beautiful intersection of the physical and the digital.

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Case Study: Reimagining the Loyalty Program

Every studio jumps at the chance for that blank canvas, from-the-ground-up redesign. Last year we were lucky to tackle such a project for MyPoints, a popular online rewards program that allows users to earn points for shopping, searching the web, taking surveys, and more.

Redshift was tasked with developing a brand new design language that would feel equally at home on your desktop, tablet, or mobile phone. Drawing inspiration from a diverse array of products and patterns—from game leaderboards to social eCommerce and personal fitness tracking apps—we created a dramatically simplified experience that feels easy, light, accessible and—of course—fun. 

We learned a lot along the way, so we thought we'd share this case study to unpack the thought process that goes into designing for mobile vs. web.  

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Game Review: Destiny

One of the designers in our office loves video games, so we were super excited when he brought in his PS4 to show us the new game, Destiny.

For those of you who don't know, Destiny is an open world, massively multiplayer online (MMO) first-person shooter game. Sounds like a mouthful, right? Created by Bungie (read: the team behind the series Halo), Destiny represents a $500 million investment - the biggest budget ever for a game.

Destiny is set 700 years into the future where humans have colonized the Solar System. An event known as "the Collapse" sends mankind to the brink of extinction, and the survivors (known as the Guardians) attempt to reconstruct the world to its pre-apocalyptic state.  Players assume the role of these Guardians, who are charged with destroying ferocious alien races before humanity is completely wiped out.

Quick features of the game:

1. Players freely explore different parts of the universe alongside other players in a "shared world" shooter environment.

2. Players own a spaceship that takes them to different planets to complete missions and increase their level, which unlocks new opportunities.

3. Players are aided by a Ghost (voiced by Peter Dinklage from Game of Thrones) that guides them throughout the quest.

THE VERDICT

Overall, Destiny is an exciting game but certainly falls flat in a couple areas.

Pros:

- Beautiful and fluid visuals

- Immersive 3D sound design

- Sophisticated and seamless integration of multiplayer into a single player storyline

- Highly addictive upgrade loop

- Fun mashup of action-based science fiction and fantasy references (think: Star Wars, Star Trek, Starship Troopers, Final Fantasy)

Cons:

- The writing is pretty bad. Sorry, Bungie creative writers.

- Peter Dinklage's voice casting is questionable. We'd much prefer something à la GLaDOS from the game Portal.

- Battle fatigue. All missions begin to feel the same and there is a slight amount of retreading familiar territory.

- Not enough random matchmaking of players for story missions.

Video gamers out there, what do you think of the Destiny?

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Travel startups with a twist

Routehappy

Airlines seem to be nickel and dime-ing us more and more these days. Legroom has shrunken and checked bags usually come with a fee. Routehappy helps you find flights by taking into account the happiness factor. Besides low price, variables such as shorter flight time, free wi-fi, more legroom, free checked bags, in-flight entertainment, and food options are used to rank the available flights.

Detour

If taking the less-traveled path is how you like to travel, add Detour to your download list. Their mobile app will have self-guided location-aware audio walks and they plan to launch in the Bay Area later this year. With fresh content each month from journalists, radio producers, tour guides, and artists, San Francisco natives may even learn a thing or two. Detour is in private beta right now but you can signup on their website to get on the waiting list.

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Apple Watch on the Cover of Vogue China

As we've mentioned here before (and as others have observed), one of the biggest challenges that wearables makers face is how to reconcile the form of the device with the public's finicky fashion sensibilities.

By now, it's obvious Apple has solved for this by eschewing the one-size-fits-all approach and offering an array of slick customizations. What's less obvious is how neatly their communication strategy aligns with the design approach.

First, they grant Vogue rare access to Jony Ive. Then, the watch shows up at Paris Fashion Week. Next month, it will adorn Liu Wen's wrist on the cover of Vogue China. Business of Fashion provides a very telling peek into the Apple's courtship with the fashion set, and with an increasingly enthusiastic consumer segment. 

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Unsquare Dance featured on Vimeo

Redshift’s own Stewart McLennan got shown a little love from the Vimeo staff this week.

His beautiful short film “Unsquare Dance” inspired by the Dave Brubek piece was featured on the Vimeo staff picks page. 

And a shout out to Scott Andreae, Redshift visual designer extraordinaire, who created the title sequences.

Clap it out!

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The most beautiful iPhone apps of 2014

This summer, Apple announced the winners of the 2014 Apple Design Awards.

Here at Redshift, we decided to make our own list of the most beautiful iPhone apps out there—based on visual design, usability, and enjoyment:

Monument Valley Probably the best-looking iOS app of all time, Monument Valley is a surreal game based on M.C. Escher's impossible geometry. Creators: ustwo

Kiwanuku Kiwanuku is a puzzle game in which you make cute little citizens do crazy things to lead you to freedom. Creators: The ironically named London indie game studio CMA Megacorp

Dolo An app for San Franciscans, Dolo helps you find your friends among the hoards of sunbathers, slackliners and picnickers in Dolores Park. Creators: A crew of former Facebook and Foursquare employees: Sophie Xie, Jason Prado, Ryan Williams

Steller Steller helps you tell stories with photos, videos and text. Creators: San Francisco startup Mombo Labs

Noisli Noisli generates background noise and color to set different moods. It helps you relax, get focused for work, or wind down for bed. Creators: Copenhagen designer Stefano Merlo

Clear Clear helps you stay organized with amazingly simple task lists and reminders. Creators: Realmac

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Mary Blair + more at the Walt Disney Museum

Check out the "Magic, Color, Flair: the world of Mary Blair" exhibit at the Walk Disney museum while it's still up. Mary was art director (not animator) for Disney during the 40s and 50s. Her student work is featured first -- and it's always interesting to see where artists begin -- and continues through her trip to South America (part of a goodwill tour with Disney during WWII), which inspired the bright, colorful, stylized concept drawings you'll recognize in many of the iconic Disney movies of the era, including Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Los Caballeros, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and perhaps most famously the "It's a small world" ride.  

While you're at the museum, also check out the main Disney exhibit, which chronicles Walt's life alongside the many technological breakthroughs he made in animation and film, including the multiplane camera (standing two-stories tall in the gallery), and using a bouncing ball in the negative to synchronize music (try it yourself at the multiplayer Guitar-hero-esque synching booth). 

Plus, who can resist controlling an animatronic parrot?  

My favorite single display though was the enormous wall of Steamboat Willie cells. It's overwhelming! What a great way to show off both the mechanics and effort and joy of that signature animation. 

Mary Blair's exhibit is up until September 7th, but the Disney museum is open year-round. Go and be a kid for a day! 

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(Re)designing the Ticketmaster ticket

We love (re)design exercises, and we do them often. We also like to give shout outs to any outstanding redesigns we find out there.  Matthew Lew described his TicketMaster redesign in a Medium piece a few months ago and we think it's pretty smart.

Matthew is a designer and music enthusiast, and with each Ticketmaster concert he attended the shortcomings of the ticket design became increasingly apparent. 

They're hard to read, particularly in low light, and the lack of information hierarchy creates UX issues. Plus, the design hasn't really changed in forty years. Take a look: 

Before checking out Matthew's solution, we at REDSHIFT did our own. We reviewed the current ticket and identified the problems, split into teams to create some new sketches, and then pitched our new designs to each other.

Key goals: 

Eliminate redundant information 

Get rid of the difficult to read ALL-CAPS fonts

Create a better information hierarchy 

Highlight the band’s artwork. 

This last one isn’t necessarily obvious, but tickets are keepsakes — many put them on their walls and into their scrapbooks — and we wanted to preserve and enhance this. A band image is a simple way to make each ticket unique. 

Finally, we compared our designs to Matthew's. 

His solution was certainly successful, and focused on many of the same issues. We thought he could have pushed the prevalence of the band's artwork even further. The tickets look different, but not quite different enough, and the images are not entirely clear beneath that graphic treatment. However, we love the color coding according to event type. 

Great job over all and we hope Ticketmaster hires Matthew (or Redshift) immediately.