Iyanla Vanzant: Awakenings
UI Mobile iPhone App
user interface design / branding / interactive
Oceanhouse Media’s newest digital publisher and online community, Beauty Everywhere, approached me with the revolutionary idea of designing a new daily spiritual coaching app for Iyanla Vanzant.
Known for her No.1 reality show “Iyanla: Fix My Life” on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network — where she interacts with people to uncover their emotional experiences and assists them with repairing their lives — Iyanla Vanzant wanted to develop a personalized spiritual coaching app where she could apply those spiritual principles to help a wider audience gain inner peace and guidance on a path to healing their lives.
Full disclosure: I didn’t design the video below — however it’s always nice to see the end product in motion! Kudos to the Oceanhouse Media team for this promo.
Wireframes:
Establishing a solid design foundation
The initial brief was to design a clear visualization of “Awakenings with Iyanla Vanzant” and how the user will experience spiritual coaching through Iyanla’s daily personalized pep-talks.
The customer journey experience begins each day featuring three personal daily guiding principles —which Iyanla has “selected just for you”, sent via an alarm feature with exclusive access to Iyanla’s Spiritual Feast audio messages. Listening to Iyanla explain the deeper meaning, messages can be replayed at any time before the day’s end with the ability to share this personal experience with others via social media links.
Sketches + Initial Comp Roughs
Quick pencil sketches were flushed out to establish a few design directions — using the wireframes as a starting point for design.
The first design round yielded 3 total design directions (see white phone mockups) in addition to typography title badges, color schemes, and stylization detailing.
Upon Iyanla’s feedback, I gracefully merged two overarching concepts — color and gold glitter from closest left design with the main menu arch and interior of the far right design.
Three additional typography badges were introduced for review and the final approved design from Iyanla, along with the design tweaks, is featured in the top black phone mockup.
Capturing the beauty of daily self-reflection
Many people are challenged to set aside time to meditate let alone for inner reflection. Always on the go, sometimes all you really need is to tackle just one thing at a time with a little infusion of compassion, truth, love and understanding.
Researching Iyanla’s vibrant personal branding, my challenge as lead UI designer was to reflect her aesthetic and visually represent the pleasure of taking time out of one’s day as an experience that could be celebrated in a therapeutic, positive and inspiring manner.
My primary goal was to create original artwork in a single Photoshop file that would seamlessly crop to format within all three platforms on mobile and tablet (iPad, iPhone, and the newest iPhone X) and working with the developers to ensure the designs were executed as planned.
Iconographic detail
The “SUBSCRIBE” icon was tailored to reflect a “V” for Vanzant.
Allowing the design to sparkle
Supplemental graphics were designed to carry the messages from “Awakenings with Iyanla Vanzant” across various digital platforms — including the free app promo to download on the App Store and Google Play, two versions of the app icons, and two social media screens to share the daily principles for Facebook, Instagram, or email.
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