Stacking it up
Slices
Each Stacks page in RapidWeaver is
built from slices that are defined by you, the
user. Anything from a Styled Text slice to an Image
or Columns slice. You can create a complex layout
quickly and with ease. Each slice needed a simple,
clear icon to represent it to make it easy for
users to discern what they were at a glance. Isaiah
had a general idea of the sort of icons he was
looking for to represent most of these slices. So I
took his sketches and turned them into finished
icons. Working with Isaiah was a dream as he not
only had an idea of what he wanted, but he was also
very receptive to my ideas on both the icon and
interface design. Here’s a look at his initial
sketches and the finished icons for the slices.
Interface
I also worked with Isaiah on
developing the user interface for Stacks. Below are
a few of the initial ideas I came up with for the
Library design and main content interface. Some
were more ‘out there’ than others, but I wanted to
try some very different approaches as this was not
to be your ordinary plug-in. The ideas were roughed
out and we finally chose a more traditional, yet
standout setup and look.
In the end we
settled on the matte black library. We added a
non-standard, classy library trigger in the lower
right corner of the interface. The final UI design
came out rather well, I think, and is easy to use
and navigate.
Iconic
We were quite lucky in developing the
main Stacks icon. After sketching some ideas out
for myself to start from I jumped right into Cinema
4D to mockup some icon ideas. Luckily these early
renders were what Isaiah was looking for and the
metaphor fit well with the title and functionality
of the plug-in. Some of the early ideas can be seen
below. We actually never varied too far from these
early ideas, for the most part. Seems we hit it on
the head from the get go.
Here is the final icon
we settled upon to represent Isaiah’s wonderful new
plug-in. I just love the bright, contrasting
colors!
