Not Found

This article could not be found. Please browse some of our recent stories.

iPhone App Icon: Twist It!

Twist It is a gimmicky app for the iPhone. The point of the app is to pretend your phone is the grip of your bike and Twist It to hear your bike rev up. Again, the app developer needed an icon that visually explains what this app does.

I created the generic grip in Photoshop horizontally level. I created a flat layer, adding monochromatic noise, and used the warp tool to “wrap” the layer around the grip for a more realistic feel.

more »

The twisted arrow was broken down into two groups of layers. The front group was made using three shapes, plus one layer for the effects. The back of the arrow is a single layer, with a mask to hide the parts I don’t need.

Once the grip looked right, I created a copy of all of the layers and flattened it. Then I used the distort option to get the perfect angle.

The actual graphic that was submitted to Apple did not have the rounded corners or the glare that you see here. The app developer submitted it without the effects and let the App Store add in the effects after the fact.

comment

« less | 

Ideas!

We launched our latest free project today. It’s a simple little web app that Craig and I made to help us keep track of project ideas. Since the concept worked so well for us, we decided to make it available for everyone.

It’s pretty simple. For each app idea you have, simply enter five things: name, description, price, dev time, and type (iPhone or web app). Then drag them around on screen in the order you think they should be done. That’s it! It also has some nice features like collaboration and notifications.

More information and a fully working demo are available here.

more »

comment

« less | 

iPhone App Icon: zCalc

The primary use of zCalc is to determine how much material one needs given the dimensions of an area. The developer asked if I could make a suitable icon. I felt the icon should incorporate a tape measure and, logically, a calculator.

I grabbed my tape measure out of the garage and sketched several angle shots. None of the initial concepts gave the user any indication of what the app did, and the more detailed ideas were too difficult to see when sized down to standard icon size.

more »

Finally, after staring at my tape measure – and a checkerboard Photoshop canvas – for way too long, it hit me. The side profile is already the shape of the standard rounded corner app icons! (Duh.) Using the side profile conveniently provided the circle area where most tape measurers display their branding... perfect placement for calculator buttons. Rounded buttons best fit the design, so I went with buttons that were reminiscent of almost identical to the original iPhone’s calculator icon.

comment

« less | 

About Darren Beckett

I am 50% of Threemagination, an “ideas studio” in Southern California, owned by myself and my friend, Craig. My role in the company mostly deals with the interface design, but I also have been known to dive into the code. This is a journal that talks about some of the fun stuff I’ve been working on.

more »

darrenbeckett.com was created using my own blog software. After several attempts at trying the big ones, I gave up and made my own. At some point I plan to wrap it up into a nice package and allow others to use it. But chances are, by the time I get around to it, blogging with be so 2009.

comment

« less |