I'm often asked, 'what projects and companies do you see pushing the industry forward?' This past week I set myself to the challenge of finding works released approximately in the past year which could be considered to be dimensional interface art.
It ended up being somewhat difficult to find interface art with depth given that most designers have abandoned static UI art in favor of ephemeral animation, or eschewed using any art altogether. Nevertheless, I've found some exemplary designs from the community and I would like to share them with you.
Stripe Product Illustration
Stripe payments credit card illustration.
Another illustration of Stripe's global presence–this time animated.
Stripe has consistently put out trend-bucking illustrations to accompany their custom-tailored product lines. You can check out many more on their site product pages.
June UI Art
Detailed food category illustrations.
Interface buttons for the oven.
James McDonald's UI.
James McDonald designs highly organized interfaces and isn't afraid of adding depth to better convey interactive elements.
Bjango iStat Menus Icon Tutorial
iStat Menus icon.
Marc Edwards of Bjango published a breakdown of his icon design workflow. It's a must-read, with great tips even for experienced icon designers.
Earth Screensaver
Pranav Pramod's Earth screensaver.
Pranav Pramod released this illuminated Earth clock screensaver built in Quartz Composer. Even though screensavers are no longer necessary given LCD screens, this one is worth a look.
Taptanium's Parallax Soundscapes
Windy app.
Twitterrific for Mac, for Apple Watch and an interpretation by Balderoine.
Among other things, the Iconfactory's Twitterrific app was the first to use a bird in their icon (named Ollie). Designer Balderoine produced a beautiful replacement icon that evokes the same depth as its desktop counterpart.
Wildstar UI Art
An array of Durán's interface art.
Wildstar installation screen.
One of the only remaining fields of UI design in which expressive depth is not yet forbidden is video game design. UI Artist Miguel Angel Durán has in recent months been releasing samples of the vivid, otherworldly UI artwork he produced for the game Wildstar.
Encide User Interfaces
Silva's fantasy interfaces.
Designer Tim Silva runs his Encide fantasy interface competition each year and this past year's has some incredibly rendered artwork. Here are two designs by Silva.
Apocalypse Meow
Spaceship animation by Guido Rosso.
Splitcell is taking advantage of 3D in their upcoming space fighter adventure game, Apocalypse Meow. As you might guess, there's a twist: the pilots are cats. Keep an eye out here for updates on the game. Be wary, it's quite addictive.
Painting with Pedja
Rusic's lotus flower.
Pedja Rusic is on a streak of illustrating highly detailed game artwork like this excellently painted lotus flower. You can find more illustrations from the set here.