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I'm a developer who is making an app without a graphic designer for the first time. I am competent at making user interfaces that fits conventions and the Apple Human Interface Guidelines, but when it comes adding that extra layer of decoration to make the app sexy, I'm totally inexperienced.

Does anyone have any pointers or resources for helping developers such as myself act like graphic designers, in particular for iPhone apps?

I have a technical knowledge of photoshop, without having an artistic ability with it. I like to believe that I have a good eye for judging aesthetics, but I've never been good at creating something aesthetically pleasing from scratch.

James Webster
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WoodenKitty
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    I suffer from exactly the same problems! Will be interesting to see some answers. I suppose "pay a professional" will feature... – Eamorr Jul 05 '11 at 09:42
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    you have a valid concern. in fact many of us (techies) feel the same... but i don't think your question can have a definitive answer... and its definitely not programming related.. – Swapnil Luktuke Jul 05 '11 at 10:36
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    This is off topic but I'm not voting to close, since this hits close to home. (Although to be fair, I've done a tad of graphic design before.) – Moshe Jul 05 '11 at 13:13

6 Answers6

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"Acting as" requires being one, so learn the basics of graphic design. One popular book for beginners is The Non-Designer's Design Book. It's not about Photoshop, it's about recognizing why a design works to improve your judgement. There is more logic behind it than you may think. Usually being pleasing is the same as conveying useful information, "design is how it works as much as how it looks".

Review screenshots of existing iOS apps: Pttrns, Well Placed Pixels, Beautiful Pixels, or keep your own collection using LittleSnapper and CandyBar.

Unfortunately most tutorials are step by step instructions to reach a goal, but they don't bother much in why or how combining certain effects works. Then there are a lot of subtleties which you will have to dig in blog posts. Erik Tjernlund posted a good link (flyosity.com), here is another (bjango.com). These details create immediate trust from the user. There are plenty of tutorial sites on Google, but learning PS is a long-term goal.

An (offtopic) option now is to buy professional services. Example, Articles from Sophia Teutschler got help from the IconFactory. It's cost effective to invest your time in what you do best to pay for what they do best.

Jano
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I really like Mike Rundle's (@flyosity) blog post – "Crafting Subtle & Realistic User Interfaces" – as a good, hands-on introduction on how to think about creating beautiful user interfaces. Follow some of his advice and your apps will automatically look much better.

To get inspiration, I highly recommend the Pttrns site. Look at how different apps solve common tasks.

My last advice is to practice a lot. My experience is that using the most commonly used tools (Photoshop and Illustrator) doesn't come naturally for us developers. Seeing a professional using these tools can sometimes be a real eye-opener. Especially workflow and how they use the tools to guide them in the creative process.

Erik Tjernlund
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I am frequently visiting this website: http://app.itize.us/wp/ Not for directly copying others design or functionality but I always get ideas on how to design GUI elements here, often by mixing many of the different styles. I will also recommend you to just play with all of the different layer options you get when you double-click a layer in Photoshop, learned a lot by doing that!

LuckyLuke
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The Web Designers Guide to iOS Apps is excellent but it does focus on NimbleKit. If you're not using NK the design discussions are still valuable.

glimpse nirvana
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You can follow tutorials here. I am not vary much familiar about photoshop/illustrator but may be these tutorials be helpful.

Janak Nirmal
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Having a "good eye" and knowing what looks nice is good, but if you don't have that initial "vision" then you will be spending a lot of time playing around until you stumble on the design that looks good and even then you may never reach that point.

As developers, we are very good at following the guidelines put down by Apple and making sure that we follow those - after all it's a nice logical set of rules to follow and that's exactly what we do when we write code - follow logical rules.

Unfortunately the design side of things doesn't have rules that we can follow. Yes, we may be technical at using Photoshop or some other drawing application, but when it comes to actually having that spark of inspiration, that's not something we can just click a button for.

Looking at other applications is one way to go. But then you may end up having an app that looks like another app or a collection of a number of apps and then you may have problems with a fluid user interaction.

My own approach to this problem was to go out and find someone who is really good at doing that art stuff and working with them. I struggled for a long time designing my own stuff, but looking back, it was obvious it was a developer (me) doing the design. I'm not sure what it is, but there's an extra something that these graphic artists seem to be able to do that I just can't get and that makes all the difference.

But the flip side to this is that he can't code. Sometimes it's best to just stick to what you're best at.

Nick Bull
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