Here’s the shaded version of my UI mock-up from the previous post. The colour accent is a global swatch, it’s easy to switch the blue to something else. Flat colour can look very brutalist, so I added a soft gradient to the neutral grey panels. I also simplified some of the decorative bits that were floating around.

I’ve started vectorizing the UI elements in Adobe Illustrator, and will keep this post updated as my work progresses. Here is the main screen of the app, followed by the 3 dream-catcher shapes for Dreams, Fears and Follies. I also show some modal dialogues.

I like this combination of the Pauline font for title and buttons, Proxima Light for label text. Technically, there probably should be “Recover Password” link on the log in screen. It might also be nice to have “Delete” button inside the Open dialog, to be able to clean up unwanted files.

I iterated on the UI layout for my surreal city builder app. There is a new dream-catcher design, the elements are now arranged in a single column to give more space for the text. They used to be in rows of circles.

I also re-designed the icons for the Dream/Fear/Folly building categories. The “Dreams” used to be represented by an abstract blob. That shape was not consistent with the other two, so I dropped the blob, and decided to go for the same head shape with different facial expressions. This reminds me a bit of the health indicator in the classic Doom.

The material design will have rounded corners and 3D look to all elements. The graphic in the header consists of geometric primitives, and I have this idea of small 3D shapes floating around the toolbars. I want to use some shapes from my thumbnail sketches for this small decorative flourish.

Individual buttons on the toolbar and menu will be flat, only the toolbar itself will be 3D. This is because the UI might become too crowed if both the toolbar and the individual buttons on it are bevelled.

The font is Roboto Slab, it’s popular on the web, but I’m not convinced it is the best for my purposes. I’ve been looking for more decorative alternatives from Adobe Fonts.