Tags: #shift-nudge #ui-design ## Final(ish) Concepts ![[sn_final revision_choosing_design_software.png]] If you want, you can poke into the Figma file [here](https://www.figma.com/file/5fU9KdH01W70m6P8ixAIg1/1-%E2%80%94-Start---Bobbie?node-id=23006%3A11213) and check out all my initial explorations and revisions. Beware, it's a mess in there. ## Prompt Design a small contact card for yourself. Include: - an avatar of yourself - your name - your twitter, Ig, or dribbble handle - a URL to your website if applicable - a button for contacting you via email ## Summary For the top two cards, I worked on these a while back when I first started Shift Nudge. At the time I’d been experimenting with a conversational approach to my personal site, and my friend had drawn the lovely avatar you see here, so I incorporated it into my initial attempt. I liked how it came out looking somewhat like a postcard...with a “written” quality to it. I like the casual conversational vibe. I like the type treatment--the pairing of Space Mono (monospace, tech) with Source Sans Pro (sans-serif, simple, legible) works well here. The bottom two cards I worked on more recently because I wanted to explore a different concept. It’s always fun to play with the assignments that ask you to reflect a bit on your personal brand, how you want to present your identity on the web, etc. Anyway, lately I’ve been gaming more, thinking about crypto and web3, so I wanted to experiment with a “metaverse” avatar and designed the rest of the contact card with that approach. Here, the avatar is from https://readyplayer.me Once again, my favorite part here is the type treatment - Orbitron leans into the playful gamer vibe, and the complementary color scheme strengthens that. ## Initial Submission ![[sn_initial_sub_choosing_design_software.png]] ## Feedback Sought 1. For the first concept, spacing and proportions! I vibe with the colors, I like the typeface choices, but something about the negative space in relation to the content feels unbalanced. The social + contact icons seem too small, name too long/large. 3. For the second concept, I struggled with layout of the social icons/username/website link. Also, overall it looks...cleaner than I’d like it to? It could have a more chaotic, playful vibe. Would be open to suggestions on how to make it more visually interesting. ## Feedback Received ### First Concept - Experiment with line height/vertical spacing between the three - agreed, I incorporated this into my final revision by adding 8px of space between the different sections. I think the result is more legible. Before the content was muddled together a bit. - Experiment with contrast between the text styles - agreed, I incorporated this into my final revision by decreasing the opacity of less important lines of text (while ensuring they still had appropriate contrast using a Stark plugin). I think the result - Experiment with larger icons - while I tried this, I ultimately did not incorporate it into my final revision. Aesthetically, I think the smaller icons, at 24x24 instead of 32x32, are more balanced when you look at the overall contact card. ### Second Concept - Experiment with 3D effect between name and avatar by - wow, I was really torn on this! I definitely think the 3D effect looks cool. But I'm uncertain about covering my name even a little bit 😂 perhaps that's just vanity. Ultimately, I went against including this in the final revision. - All contact info + name at the bottom feels cramped. Experiment with adding padding to the top to use the space up there as well. - 100% agreed, I incorporated this into my final revision. I increased padding at the top of the contact card. ## Final(ish) ![[sn_final revision_choosing_design_software.png]] ## Learnings "Silence your self-critic" I notice a lot of times when I'm designing, an idea will pop into my head. Something like -- hmm let me trying moving these icons over, or aligning this in this way instead, or trying this color scheme. And immediately after that idea pops into my head, another voice immediately goes --- no, that won't work. The key to experimentation, which is the key to design, is to ignore that second voice when you're in design mode. There's design mode and there's edit mode. Critique mode. In design mode, you want to try all the things. Even if you feel like it won't work. You might surprise yourself. Or you might learn something about why it doesn't work, that allows you to come up with something that does work. --- Created: October 21, 2021 Last Modified: November 21, 2021