ASCEND
HYPOTHETICAL IDENTITY & UI/UX DESIGN
Timeline
July 2022
Project Brief
Hypothetical Identity & UI/UX Design Project
Phase 1 Branding
Create a brand with a comprehensive style guide.
Phase 2 Triple Threat
Create a desktop site, mobile site, and app for the
brand. Sites and app must follow style guide.
Team
Jacqueline Boals
Maggie Shaw
Jessica Sherrington
Sydney Hughes
Tools
Milanote
Canva
Illustrator
Figma
PHASE 1 | BRANDING
Overview
Ascend Space Voyage seeks to perfect the surreal adventure of space travel. Ascend constantly goes beyond the horizon to find new and exciting spaces of luxury and adventure to our clients. We offer the premier commercial space travel management with an emphasis on safety and world-class service. Through unforgettable experiences with a focus on sustainability, Ascend is the leader in expanding the horizons of the most discerning adventurers.
Challenge
Our group was tasked with creating a hypothetical brand that solves a problem. Creating this brand entailed crafting a mission statement, brand voice, logos, colors, typography, imagery, and personas. Essentially, we needed to create a comprehensive identity for this brand.
Solution
After brainstorming, we landed on creating a futuristic, space travel agency. We wanted to serve those looking for their next big adventure in style. We wanted this brand, Ascend, to embody both luxury and adventure. All design choices were made to serve this goal. This culminated into our style guide.
PROCESS | Brainstorm & Moodboard
We started our brainstorm and moodboards on Milanote. I feel like moodboards always help me get a good big picture idea before heading into details. We then refined our design brief to use as a compass guiding our aesthetics and personas.
PROCESS | Colors
We chose to have an intentionally limited and neutral color palette to serve as a backdrop for Ascend's stellar experience. Shades of blacks, blues, and purples reflect Ascend's luxury, sophistication, and style.
Dark Matter
Horizon
Moon Walk
Supernova
Milky Way
Meteor Belt
Neptune Cloud
Orion Swirl
Crater Dust
PROCESS | Logos
While our team did most everything collaboratively, I took the lead on our logos due to my background in graphic design and experience with Illustrator. I did several iterations and refined them after we discussed as a group. I typically start in black and white then go back to try different color variations.
Completed Style Guide
PHASE 2 | TRIPLE THREAT
Overview
Our hypothetical brand, Ascend Space Voyage, seeks to perfect the surreal adventure of space travel. Our website for desktop and mobile allow future guests to learn more about us as well as book voyages. Our mobile app serves our current guests allowing them to manage and maximize their voyage from their mobile device.
Challenge
Now that we’ve fully realized our brand, we were tasked with prototyping a website for desktop, website on mobile, and an app that features different functionality than the sites.
Solution
For our desktop and mobile sites, we structured them to be geared towards potential clients. We included standard pages like home, about us, and contact us. We also included a page that highlights some of Ascend’s destinations.
We differentiated our app by having it more focused for clients currently on one of our voyages. It allows guests to order meals, book experiences, and more.
PROCESS | Brainstorm & Planning
We returned to our digital drawing board (Milanote) to plan out our site pages and app. We discussed what type of content we wanted to include on each page and how we could differentiate our app from the site.
PROCESS | Mockups & Layouts
We roughly planned out some of our site pages and app screens using Canva. This allowed us to quickly plan our site/app so that we were all on the same page when it was time to prototype.
PROCESS | Design
We brought our plan to life using Figma. We started by dividing and conquering to get through everything, while frequently reviewing each other’s work to offer suggestions. My primary contributions were the Cart screen on the app, the Destination page on the desktop site, and finishing touches to make all screens cohesive.
PROCESS | Prototyping
After we finalized each page/screen, we moved on to prototyping. We made sure to include all possible journeys a user might take. We then tested out each flow.
Interactive Prototypes
Results & Final Thoughts
I've done many identity design projects at this point in my career, but this is one of the first times I've gotten the challenge of incorporating it into a website and app. I feel like it's very much a sink or swim situation when implementing your designs into print or digital applications. It either is successful or it isn't.
I believe that my team was successful in creating and following a style guide that served our hypothetical brand well. Our color and typography choices lended themselves well to creating the best user experience possible on our sites and app. There was never a point where I had concerns or regrets regarding the contrast between our selected colors or the readability in our chosen fonts.
This experience made me realize how much I truly enjoy getting to expand and work more with what I've created. I love doing identity design. It's like figuring out a puzzle made of color, type, and image that results in an identity for a brand. This was like getting to take that puzzle and use it as pieces to solve an even bigger puzzle.