Orion – From idea to launch in 45 days
Last month we released Orion, a small app that turns your iPad into an HDMI monitor. This was certainly a big departure from our usual practice of making camera apps, so I wanted to take a moment to show the 'why' — and, after that, the 'how': our process of making it from thought to launch.
With Orion, our fourth app, it hides a similar visual joke but with a bit more layering. Perhaps our development icon can reveal it to you:
App four — four icons. Get it?
Now it was just a matter of choosing the final app icon.
Honestly, I simply chose the one that was the most fun to make: the test-image TV tube. It matched our last minute domain name choice of Orion dot tube. We still use the Orion logo throughout, though — on our website and all over the app.
The Upgrade Screen
The final challenge in the last week or so was designing an attractive upgrade screen for the Pro features. We decided to reuse some of our unused manual graphics — they were just too good — so we could pack more retro-80s graphic design into the app and inform people of the kind of cool features that we had in Orion Pro.
I really wanted to do something fun with the price label, so I made a rather too detailed, half-peeled and slightly damaged discount tag.
While investigating typical typefaces, I discovered Apple's San Francisco Compressed typeface style matched great:
To accomplish the worn sticker effects, I used a combination of textures and brushes in Photoshop to get the material right, then created vector shapes in Sketch of the label and its small paper 'folds'.
Final details and the little curl were all rendered in Sketch. We exported a blank 'tag' bitmap so we could dynamically render the price for localization.
Chunky Friends
Recall Ben's solution to users not being sold with just the manual? As we put final touches on these screens, Jelmar worked on designs outside of the app. He had already worked on a fun series of chunky renders of various movie props:
So, we figured, rather than just tell you what the app does with dry text, he jammed on these extremely cool, chunky renders showing the app in use.
See it connected to a camera:
Or a computer:
Jabir Digital
Founder and editor of StartsNest. Technology writer and digital marketing specialist with expertise in mobile technology, consumer electronics, and online business strategies.
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