Applications aren’t built from scratch. At the very least, there’s some sketching done on the back of an envelope. These days, there’s a thriving community of creators and businesses putting out all sorts of tools, templates, and tutorials that make app design more collaborative and inclusive.
We’re proud to say that a lot of what we put into the Gumroad iPhone app came from products created and sold by Gumroad creators. From what Maxwell used to build it, to what I used to design it, and more, here’s what our community put in to our new app.
Achieving Zen with Auto Layout
There’s a massive learning curve for laying out user interfaces for OS X and iOS platforms. Even getting that previous sentence straight was a little confusing. When it came to actually building the app, Maxwell picked up Achieving Zen with Auto Layout by Justin Williams and had this to say about it:
It really cut through the scariness of using nslayoutconstraint. Before, I would always use Interface Builder or Storyboard. Now I can go either way and get a great result.
What I personally enjoyed is that Justin’s book gave us flexibility. Any time a boundary is broken down, that’s one less constraint to work within, which makes designing and building the app more fun.
When everything was coming together, I went to Mockuuups.com and bought their iPhone 5s Mockuuups. It’s a 12-pack of PSD templates with backgrounds that can be changed out, male and female hands, and multiple colors and poses. And everything is super high-res and clean. We used them for our Facebook mobile install ads, as well as on gumroad.com/mobile. Side note: I love the way they use overlay and have separate landing pages for each product.
If you’re in need of iPhone templates, I highly recommend these guys. They’ve even got a free sample available on their site you can check out.
We’ve been using Symbolicons since before I started at Gumroad. You’ve seen them around our site. Their massive sets of perfect little vector graphics contain everything from scissors to rockets to speech bubbles to skulls… and, well, every single thing in the world. We used some of their line icons to denote file types (files for reading, files for listening to, files for viewing) in the app. They’re perfect and clear even at around ⅛”.
And a similar side note to earlier: They’ve got a great site and use overlay beautifully. Respect.
Kyle’s brushes are without equal. Travis drew and colored an illustration of the White Rabbit for an ebook version of Alice in Wonderland that we included in the new build of the app using a couple of Runny Inkers and a watercolor brush. From Travis:
I’ve used Kyle’s brushes on a variety of projects, both for Gumroad illustrations and for personal work. I used his runny inkers to do lots of post-scan line work on a picture book that I drew with a scratchy 2mm pencil. And his watercolor brushes are absurd. I often use them for backgrounds more quickly and (muuuch) more effectively than I would do using real watercolors.
That we were able to incorporate elements from our community to build something for our community is, to say the least, inspiring. So thanks for being a part of it.
Our iPhone app can be downloaded from the App Store, and we’re continuing to develop it, always seeking to offer the best mobile reading, listening, and viewing experience possible.
We love getting your feedback. Feel free to get in touch.