Design your way

Monday, November 25, 2013

iOS 7 has brought with it an array of changes in the realm of Graphic UI in introducing things like: borderless buttons, a full screen layout for better viewing of controllers, translucent bar not to mention the changes made to the grid system and other dimensions of its icons. Such iconography and typography changes directly mean that app developers have to adapt swiftly to match this new flat design.

The design seamlessly justifies recent claims that apple were going flat with iOS 7 – it is typically flatter than the previous models. A clear inference is that it is not just flat for no reason in that the new software built for this phone looks executive rendering suggestions that in previous models there were limitations to what exactly iPhone was built for.

The new visual display does not actually get rid of unnecessary visual ornamentation but simply breaks the whole thing down and builds afresh.

The size of the status bar is similar to that of iOS6 but the visual appearance of the bar is slightly different. One can easily take control of the background color in a bid to match of an application design.

Default iOS apps depict a common feature in that the status bar is linked directly to the navigation bar-which has a title together with navigation and action button. Examples of the buttons include back to previous, edit, create etc. When the phone is oriented in a landscape mode, the navigation bar shrinks to allow more content to be displayed just below it.

In this recent development, tables/lists use the entire width of the display and are no longer besieged by the containers that used to separate these components in previous versions. The only notable separation between table views is located on top of the table-on top of the major application background.

Furthermore, Items located within the table are separated by 1 pixel line with a margin of 15pt to the left portion of the screen. It also directly connects to the right hand side of the screen. There is a padding of 15pt on either side of the item.

Apple has utilized icons in the design without over-emphasizing fill color since it use an outlines with thickness of 1pt.However, Classic icons possessing color fill are used a lot in iOS 7.

The most commonly used style for active icons in the tab bar is in the form of inverted colors while inactive icons have been represented in the form of only outlines. The active ones are filled with solid color whereas some strokes tend to disappear or get inverted.

When it comes to the font, Helvetica Neue is still the default font for iOS with the only change being that of normal text being displayed in Light face instead of Bold. Texts that are supposed to appear prominently are displayed using Medium face.

Definitely, there are still other options to Helvetica Neue in the sphere of fonts to choose in the new design but it is probably due to increased use of light that iPhone have gone for that has led to increased font size in most of this design. Last but not least, buttons appear as simple colored text links which ensures fewer occurrences of shapes around.

Here are some user interface concept designs from various designers who either imagined before launch how iOS 7 will be, or they designed these after the launch of the new operating system and saw its design guidelines.