PROTIP: It’s more fun if you’re drunk.

I need more friends that appreciate the effort I put into this.

Urban Outfitters breathes new life to the usage of word art.

Urban Outfitters recently updated their logo (after the wild success of the new Gap logo). I don’t know about you guys, but this new logo speaks volumes and I think is a huge improvement over the old one. Look at the word URBAN. Set in all caps, the condensed letters personify the New York skyline — the hallmark of urban environments. Unbounded by traditional font weights and letter spacing, the word literally reaches for the stars. But the sky is not the limit. The text treatment of the word Outfitters draws inspiration from the curvature of the Earth — a sentiment that screams, “We are not only urban, we are out(of this world)fitters”.

This logo is a beautiful blend of groundbreaking design and rich story telling. In this new age of social engagment, I hope other boring brands like American Eagle Outfitters and Banana Republic jump on this bandwagon. They are missing tremendous opportunities to capitalize on their eagle and/or banana symbolism.*

^{*Just kidding, this logo is shit.}

Sadly, Reddit’s official iPhone app lacks the features and polish I would expect from such a magical website.

That’s why I’ve started designing a new reddit app.

The Plan

Step 1: Design the App

Let’s start by defining some common tasks people perform on reddit so that we can build an experience around that.

• Reading Subreddits (similar to topics or categories)
• Upvoting/Downvoting links and comments
• Leaving a comment on a link
• Replying to comments

Then draft some wireframes that outline the overall interaction flow — making sure the core tasks are accessible and intuitive to perform.

First draft of application interaction flow

Along the way I’ve added some nice to have features such as search, user profiles, subreddit logos, triforcing, and other user interface niceties. While these are interesting features, I’ll have to confirm these are technically feasible and available via reddit’s poorly documented API.

I’m also spec’ing out support for gesture shortcuts i.e. “swipe to upvote/downvote”, “double-tap to save on reddit/copy link” and designing some UI for more advanced features like managing multiple reddit (novelty) accounts. These ideas will be fleshed out more in follow-up posts.

Step 2: Develop the App

While my area of expertise lies mostly in design, I do have programming experience. Realistically, this project will take somewhere between 3–6 months to complete. This includes designing the visual assets, researching the reddit API (or reverse engineering it), and writing all the fancy codes.

Reddit is no longer developing their official app, iReddit, and have released the source code. While this is a great start, I feel it would be better to start from scratch so I can architect a more solid foundation to build upon.

What’s Next?

Gather feedback from the reddit community, revise, develop, and iterate! Development will start on the iPhone platform and expand to Android, and possibly Blackberry.

Stay tuned for a follow-up post where I’ll show you some of the visual designs I’m exploring.

What You Can Do to Help

• Have an idea or suggestion? Share it with me!
• Sign up for email updates! All the cool kids are doing it.
• Follow me on Twitter for status updates (among other things).
• Are you an above average iOS/Android developer? Contact me