As mentioned throughout this site, and specifically here, we will often take the time to put together 2D motion visualizations (in video) in order to “look ahead” to what a product might look and feel like – long before the actual (and drawn-out) pain of detailed wireframing, design and coding.

For the recent Verizon Apps store project, we wanted to provide Verizon management with a preview of how the interface might look in both a smartphone format as well as a tablet format. We also wanted to preview enhanced media types (e.g. video) in the interface long before the development schedule would get to that advanced version of the application.

This is our “Shoot for the Moon, Land on the Roof” motto in practice.

In this short motion comp, an early design version of the Apps store opens on a smartphone showing … Read More »

After a year of design and development, the new Verizon Apps store has launched to about 4 million devices, and will roll out to a total of around 22 million devices by the end of July, 2012.

The store is a ground-up redesign of the storefront application pre-loaded to the majority of Verizon Android devices. ADG was hired in January of 2011 to conduct a tactical redesign of Verizon’s prior store, and then a wholesale redesign of the store – for both smartphones and tablets – to be launched in 2012.

Key Features
Monochromatic framework to present highly flexible merchandising options
Simple UI controls with clear catalog navigation cues
Dramatically improved merchandising options for developers
“Responsive” mobile GUI to handle screen sizes resolution from wrist-top devices up to – potentially – tv screen size devices.
Full-screen dynamic wallpaper backgrounds, changing the face of the store daily
Support … Read More »

We’ve been a bit frustrated with the way Springboard handles “folders” in iOS, especially with the number of apps users are trying to manage seemingly going up, and also in light of the fact that the iPhone screen ratio is possibly about to change.

So we put together a concept video to try to generate conversation around the topic, which we wanted to start to circulate before WWDC.

Our primary objective was to see if we could envision a way to group apps without relying on the current “folder” approach, which we find awkward. This concept introduces virtual “pages” of grouped apps that can be titled (by the user, similar to how folders can be titled) but does not require the “drilling into and out of” folder actions that are currently deployed.

The user can simply pan (horizontally) between vertically scrolling “pages” in … Read More »

Verizon announced its new developer portal and on device application storefront – designed by ADG – at their VDC 2011 conference in Las Vegas on September 13th.

Applied Design Group was selected in February to design the on device app store that will be deployed Fall 2011 throughout the Verizon network, and the new design and beta application were first revealed at the conference this week.

ADG was also tapped to produce the product overview video presented by Verizon CMO Marni Walden in her opening keynote for the conference (shown here).

We’ll be posting more details about the new Verizon app store design as we get closer to the actual launch, but we’re happy to finally let everyone know – besides friends and family – what we’ve been so busy with for the past seven months now. No details to release at … Read More »

This is a visualization piece for a hypothetical tablet-based tv remote/participation environment. The concept blends standard (IP-based) television remote control, EPG, social interaction, gaming, geo-location, and contextual advertising into a platform for parallel engagement with live as-broadcast content.

Tools Used:

Photoshop CS5
After Effects CS5
Final Cut Pro
Cinema 4D
Soundbooth CS5
Compressor
Canon 7D

Modeled and animated in Cinema 4D. Some post work in After Effects.

Tools Used:

After Effects CS5
Cinema 4D

Not much down time here lately, but with what little I have I’ve been working out all of the details of round-tripping HD video between a host of tools: Final Cut, After Effects, SoundTrack, Compressor, etc.  Also working with ProRes for transcoding for the first time which is pretty amazing.

This short is one of those tests.  Shot with a Canon 7D using an EFS 17-55 zoom, Manfrotto tripod with fluid head mount. (I’ll put that to use later …;-)

(Update: Wow, lot’s of iPad users out there already … thanks for pointing this out. If you’re here on an iPad, Vimeo has not released the embed code for iPad video playback. Until their new HTML5 version is out – soon they say – click on the Fountain link below. The HTML5 version plays fine from their website … Read More »

So the iPad was released to the wild last Saturday, and for most developers it was their first chance to have actual hardware to test on.  Sure there’s the emulator, but that’s just not the same.

I’ve been working on a project for weeks now involving a high-def (H.264) video of an iPad application (for a pitch) and the problem has been how to build something believable from something you’ve never even seen (in real life).

As an example, part of the video involves using the iBooks application.  The only source materials available before Saturday to work with were low-res screen shots from Apple, and their Guided Tours videos (which is why I was obsessed by knees the other day).

It’s only been a little over 10 years, but web retrospectives still have the potential to make one feel old when they re-introduce projects you worked on with phrases like:

“Think back to the early days of the World Wide Web, just after the invention of the Netscape browser …”.

But it’s true. In an article on adage.com Kevin Maney recalls the Miller Beer Pager (created by Red Sky back in the mid-90′s – ancient history) and suggests that those early web “apps” were – like today’s early mobile apps – just the appetizers.