Ready for the Adobe XD Contest? See How 3 Top Designers Showcase Their Cities

Adobe has launched a unique design contest using Adobe XD. We want you to take one of three exclusive and free icon kits and make a Creative City app prototype to help fellow creatives experience your city through your eyes. Whether it’s where you go to get inspired, or your favourite coffee shop – show us what you love about your home town.

All the info you need to take part in the contest can be found on our blog. The icon kits, designed by Anton & Irene, Büro Destruct and Lance Wyman, and needed for the contest are available for free here.

Need some inspiration? Just look at these creative app prototypes!

To get things started, we’ve reached out to some of our friends in the creative community and set them the same challenge – of course outside of the competition.

Check them out below together with the designers’ top tips for contest participants and their principles for good design.

Melanie Daveid: “Cats of Berlin”

Berlin-based Melanie Daveid is a UX designer and art director from Austria who has previously worked on brands including Red Bull and Puma. Her prototype _Cats of Berlin _(using Büro Destruct’s kit – available here!) gives a feline tour of the German capital – showing her top spots related to her furry friends, from cafes to nightclubs.

>> Check it out on Behance here!

Melanie’s tips for people taking part in the contest are:

• “Create multiple art-boards and try as many options as possible. Your Adobe XD file will stay lightweight – no matter how packed it is with art-boards and prototype links.”
• “With Adobe XD you can easily create a simple style-guide or you can use shared creative cloud libraries to keep your files in sync. As soon as you change an icon in your library it will be updated automatically on all art-boards. It’s a great way to ensure consistency in your own and your colleagues creative work.”
• A strong advocate of teamwork and collaboration, Melanie’s three principles of #gooddesign are:
  • “Icons are often considered to be details but they can influence the whole visual language of a project.”
  • “Stay on top of things! As soon as you get lost in details, loop someone in who’s got a “fresh eye” on your design.”
  • “Good design happens when creatives have enough time to reflect on their process and output.”

Antony Legrand: “__Get Inspired by Provence”

Antony Legrand, a French UX designer, used Anton & Irene’s icon kit (Available for FREE here!) for his prototype, celebrating the beautiful region of Provence. He gives you everything you’ll need for a long weekend on the French border – the top spots to be wined and dined, where to see a show, even the best mountains to cycle up if you’re so inclined.

>>Check it out on Behance here!

Antony’s tips for contest participants are:

• “If your app is to be responsive, think “mobile first”. You will work and imagine each page from the beginning with the highest constraints in mind.”
• “Adobe XD’s prototyping service is really practical to visualise the interactions from one page to another. The quicker you test the navigation, the more you get to see the mistakes to adjust.”
• Antony’s #gooddesign principles are:
  • “Many people tend to make wireframes before thinking about the art direction. I would rather start with the art direction, while building the units of my application at the same time, so I can anticipate the constraints.”
  • “For instance, the impact of titles in a wide font on the size of the blocks, or the impact of full screen images on the ergonomics of your application, or the impact of texts over complex images… All of these can be taken into account if you have defined the art direction at first.”

Sarah Parmenter: “Locality”

Sarah Parmenter is an award-winning iOS designer from the UK, creating work for brands including Blackberry and News International. Her project celebrates the Essex coastline – showing off sites including Southend Pier and Hadleigh Castle as well as her favourite local restaurants and coffee shops. Geolocation tech is also used to find the points of interest closest to the user.

The prototype uses Büro Destruct’s kit (available here) due to its perfect blend of quick cognitive recognition and quirkiness.

Head to Sarah’s Behance page to see her work in full!

Sarah’s tip for people entering the contest are:

• “Watch out for touch targets when designing your app. Some elements, like a back button, are too small to be consistently hit. Place an invisible box, that adheres to minimum tap-targets, around smaller elements to make them easier to use in your UI”
• “For your app, take your own photos. Explore your local town with a camera. You’ll be surprised what you unearth. With some light Photoshopping to bring out the best colours the images, image optimisation and sizing, the images will be ready for the app prototype”
• Sarah’s #gooddesign principle is:
  • “Think about real-life titles and text, not just what fits your UI. Most often, you need to leave a lot more space than you think to cover all eventualities and to give a unified UI experience”

Hopefully our small selection has got your creative juices running wild, so what are you waiting for? You have until 10:59 GMT on March 15th to get your entries in for the #IconContestXD– we can’t wait to see your designs!

Check out our contest blog post for all the details! Please see here for terms and conditions.

Good luck!