Just like I said at the beginning of this case, the whole idea came from the pandemic, anxiety, daily journaling, and therapy. I decided to create this project for the simple purpose of training my abilities as a designer and to have something new to share with my network.

I'm always busy with client work, and most of my projects take a lot of time to complete. To keep this portfolio updated, I create these concept projects from time to time.

Journaler is a safe haven for your thoughts, meaning no AI will read what you write to train some random algorithm. Everything here is personal and also serves as a daily mood tracker to see how you are doing over days, months, and years.

Like every project I work on, there are always four steps, just like the ones you can read about on my services page here. I start with discovery to understand things, then move to wireframing to create all the user flows and user journeys so my project is in an amazing place and ready for UI.

It might sound simpler than it actually is, but I don't think I need to complicate things just to sound smarter. Creating apps is hard work and very time-consuming, so to operate at a high level of quality, it takes time, effort, and a whole bunch of elbow grease.

Easter egg:
The first app I designed was a redesign of the dead app "Vine" for Windows Phone.

I'm always thinking that the current project I'm working on is the best until it's done, and then I move on to the next thing. For the Journaler project, I had an amazing time designing everything I wanted to have here: all the wireframes, screens, icons, buttons, and animations.

I love creating something bigger from time to time, like this project, to show the full extent of what I'm capable of doing for new clients. All the work you see here was done by me with a smile on my face and a podcast on my headphones.

What more can I say about the designs below?
Well, the wireframes were done and after I was happy with the ux flows I moved on to the UI.

Since this project was a concept, I wanted to have my hand in everything I designed, including the logo. Even though I'm not a brand designer, majoring in graphic design in college was really handy when creating a logo. I've been working in digital design for over 16 years, but my design heroes are all graphic designers.

For the colors, I used primary colors to match our primary emotions when dealing with things on this app. I love how the little symbol with the "J" looks like a face.

Another thing I enjoyed working on was all the little animations with the emotions. I don't consider myself an animator, but I had a great (and sometimes stressful) time working on those.

I used a lot of references to make them show what it's like to be joyful, happy, calm, and so on.

If you are reading this, here's a little easter egg for you:
Back in the '90s, I wanted to be an anime animator because of all the old animes I used to watch with my brother. Evangelion was a huge inspiration, and it's crazy to think back then I was already in love with art.

I always create a style guide when working on a design project to organize everything I have done. This includes logos, fonts, icons, and many other design components.

Organization is a huge part of everything I do for my own projects and client work. It doesn't matter if it's a concept project or a paying client; work is work, and all are the same to me in terms of quality and deliverables.