About
This project talks about a mobile security app which I had worked on as part of a team for one of our clients. I was assigned the role of a visual designer and was responsible for creating a unique visual language for the product. My primary goal was to revamp the existing user interface and make the app look more consumerish, so that even a novice user can use it with as much ease as a tech savvy power consumer.
Mood-boards
I started with creating a mood board which would help in consolidating different ideas relevant to the nature and usage of the product. Mood boarding helped in finding metaphors which could be used to define the visual language. I derived the following keywords which communicated the idea of security (in direct as well as an abstract manner) through discussions with stakeholders and secondary research:
- Secure
- Protect
- Safe
- Sheltered
These words acted as starting points for me to explore the visual metaphors for the product. Apt images which portrayed the ideas and emotions related to the sense of security and protection was compiled into a photo montage.
Sorting and Grouping
Images representing similar concepts were then categorized further into two sets. Each set of images depicted few characteristics based on their syntactic properties.
First set were objects that directly depicted a sense of high security like pictures of safe deposit lockers, surveillance cameras and window/ door grills. Keywords like hi-tech, dark, aggressive, sleek could define its characteristics. From these images, certain visual attributes were derived like glow, contrast, texture, sharpness that would form the basis of visual elements for the design as well as the color palette which was blues and greys that made the visual layer look techy.
The second group described the concept of security in a more humane way. Mood board contained pictures of umbrellas, hand bags, blankets and quilts. Keywords like bright, friendly, personalized and modern quickly mapped the visual attributes of roundness, transparency, layered with a blend of bright colors like hues of orange, green and blue.
Themes
The final visual language was created for both the themes by juxtaposing the attributes from the mood board with the latest android UI guidelines. The second theme was chosen over the other and taken forward for the visual design of the app.
The app is available on Google Play store.
Some of the final screens from the app are shown below.
