This was inspired by my 2018 Summer Graphic Design internship in Chicago. I had the amazing opportunity to intern for the American Medical Association. Not being native to Chicago proved to create some challenges navigating the city. I wanted an app that was user-friendly for navigation and alerted hot spots to visit downtown.
Icons
Each icon was hand designed specifically for this application. The theme was simple line drawings, inspired by neon signs. (Not all icons included in the app are shown below).
Application
This project was a challenge, in that I had no previous app design experience. I wanted an app that was user-friendly and that could be applied to multiple locations. This would be useful for tourists, visiting family members, college students, etc. I was only in Chicago for the summer and I wanted to get the most out of the city while I was there. I spent most weekends exploring museums, parks, and new restaurants. I became very familiar with the public transportation, but it wasn’t always easy to navigate the arrival times or my path through the city. This app would be an opportunity to see all transportation options, times of departure and arrival.
Virtually see mockup here.
Diagnostics
“Find Me,” would tell you your exact location in the city.
“Hot Spot” would show you restaurants in the area. Popularity, gave you a heat map of how busy a place was. Wait Time, told you how long you could expect to wait for a table. Age Group, gave you an estimated range of the age of customers in the restaurant. Rating, would show you yelp and google reviews of what people rated this restaurant. Menu, showed a preview of the restaurant’s menu offerings. Grab a Table, allowed you to schedule a reservation right in the app.
“Trasnport,” would show icons throughout the city of a bus station, train station, ubers or bicycle rentals. I used the same transportation throughout the time I was there, so finding alternative ways of traveling was often a challenge.
“Pit Stop” offered a series of options: restaurants, gas station, public restrooms, grocery stores, hotels, banks, places open 24/7, bars, hospitals, and sight seeing. If you clicked on one of the stops it would tell you the name of the place, the walk time it took to get there, the distance from your current location, and how many blocks away it was.
“Discover,” allowed you to scan a popular monument with your camera and it would tell you information on it. For example, the popular location “Cloud Gate” or more well known as “The Bean”. It would tell you the date of establishment, the Artist, the medium, the size, and the location.
“Walk It,” showed you places along your travel path.
“Alert,” being a single woman in a large city, I wanted to include a safety feature on the app. This was an orange bell icon at the bottom right of the screen. When pressed, it would send an alert of your location and call 911. In addition, it would sound an alarm from your phone.
Post Card Mailer
Screen Print
Screen printing was a media I wanted to explore more through this project. This t-shirt design was inspired by my Aunt, who I stayed with during my internship in Chicago. She is an actuary downtown in the Sears Tower. The illustration is of the Sears Tower, which is honoring her and everything she did for me that summer. This also followed the same theme as the app icons, postcard illustrations and the map in the app.
