The “Urban Renewal” Clothing App Project

Good design should tell a story. Follow the journey of how I designed the Urban Renewal app, and see how my customer would purchase an item for a family member. Below I outline my process, provide a video detailing of the wire-frames, a link so you can check out the prototype, and a step by step visual walk-through of each frame.

A video walk-through:

I used Adobe XD to prototype my wireframes and then captured a screen-recording of how I would walk-through the app if I were purchasing a plain white t-shirt for my aunt. If you would like to play around with the wireframes yourself, please access the prototype here.

Methodology:

The problem: So many of us have clothes that we do not wear, just idly sitting in our closets. I wanted to design an entire clothing brand that specializes in what I like to call “outfit sustainability”. All of our clothing would be made out of sustainable materials. As an added bonus, we would offer redesign services for any of our customers’ unwanted gear: drop it off, wait a few days, and come pick up your new piece (hence the name Urban Renewal). The goal for the app was to be just as transparent and bare bones as the business model. Get what you like, with no fuss. 

Who I worked with: I completed this project solo and took a few design suggestions from my mentor at the time. I also give credit to Urban Outfitters, because I built my design as an imaginary subsidiary brand that could be affiliated with them.

What tools I used: I used Adobe illustrator and Adobe XD to create the wireframes and prototypes for the app. I used Adobe InDesign to create the brand guidelines and the brochure. And I used QuickTime to screen capture my progress. 

Discovery phases: A huge part of my problem came in with the overall branding. I was afraid that my designs were too simple and that the logo wasn’t clever enough. I also didn’t feel too confident with yellow being one of my main company colors. As I continued to design, however, I began to fall in love with the simplicity of the business model and how the app was turning out. The simplicity coupled well with the overall mission of “outfit sustainability with no fuss.” The overall point of the app was to solve the problem of hyper-consumerism in the clothing industry, while still offering a solution on how to turn a profit. 

Creating personas and a user journey helped me to see the project more clearly.

A step by step walk-through: