(reverse) Engineering an Idea

This is how you might expect the process behind creating brand identities to go. However, I learned a lot and had fun mixing up this process in my work. This Project ended up being really important to me in understanding more about what I want from design, up-skilling as well as a respite from a difficult work environment.

Starting point.

I was keen to develop a second-year project which I had a lot of iterations of icons left over from. I really enjoyed the explorative process from designing a symbol based on the word ‘peripheral’ this process had also left me with an abundance of sketches. So using this work and taking the concept of what each of these logos meant to me I set off in creating a new brief for myself.

The Idea.

To me, the idea of exploring different artists and genres of music has always been really fascinating. Looking through my parents' record collection and my own music library, finding out stories behind how these records engaged with contemporary issues, events and narratives I thought it would be amazing if there was a tool to explore this in a focussed way.

​That’s how the idea of the app Auros sprung into existence.

1. Understand what UI and UX a bit more.
   
2. Work with motion and 3D 
   

​The two goals I set for myself.

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​Designing the identity, interface and values of the app speculatively and in my own time allowed me to work with the freedom to take risks, fail and most of all learn. As I was setting my goals and parameters I could really exhaust ideas and start again which was really freeing.


​The Process.
Not to go into details but, at the heart of the idea behind Auros is for us as users to have the freedom to explore and find out the interesting and obscure facts about everything beyond the music itself. For me this formed the philosophy the visual identity, taking inspiration from things beyond knowledge and comprehension: dreams, memory and the spirit of exploration and adventure big or small, be that space travel or finding a new part of your new city.

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It was really important for me to be eclectic in my references and I set myself the challenge of trying to not repeat tropes and trends in app design. Led by the ideology at the heart of the concept, of exploration, record covers became my source of reference. Playing with creating suggestions of tactility and depth to create a characterful language was really fun. Studying interfaces of website and app design I found that although these minimal and austere interfaces worked and were great for function, there was a trend of moving toward a sense of homogeny. As my project was purely speculative I was able to try and extract what worked from these designs and then prototype and test how these features could work in a different context.

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Auros App from Veronica Jones on Vimeo.

Outcome.

I ended up prototyping the app, as well as producing a series of idents, illustrations and posters imagining how it may be launched and promoted.
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Aside from the design elements of the project it also gave me a chance to learn new software workflow, and build my portfolio. Perhaps most importantly to me, at the time I started working on this project I needed to build up more confidence in my creativity and technical ability which I was loosing in my placement at the time. However, having work I enjoyed and had authorship over was just what I needed to make me excited about design again.


Veronica Jones
Graphic and Media Design
@veroj0nes