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Sustainability
Renewability
UI Design
Research

Brand Identity
Brand Application
UX Design & Animation
Ideation

Ideation:
August
2024

After exploring and researching the correlation between e-commerce, sustainability, second-hand markets, trading, and UI design, I determined that while they all intersect, there are no apps to meet consumers' needs. Many young adults use second-hand shopping sites like TheRealReal, Depop, Poshmark, and Facebook Marketplace; however, they are all missing one thing: a trade feature.

Identity:
September
2024

I named the brand Renü: a playful, yet sophisticated and timeless name that relates to the idea of the user being in control of renewability, value, and sustainability in their own closet and community. Renew + You + Smiles = Renü. It’s all about being circular during a zeitgeist of immediate gratification and overconsumption. Everything you would want to add to your wardrobe already exists, so why not trade with people who may have what you're looking for?

User Personas & Research:
September
2024

When generating user personas, I created user questionnaires, domain mapping, flow maps, stakeholder maps, and journey maps.

One user persona is Molly, a 21 year old student. Molly is a student at FIT in New York, and is heavily influenced and expresses herself with fashion. She prefers to online-shop secondhand, and stays away from fast fashion brands due to unethical practices and poor quality of garments. She is relevant as a core user because she ties her identity with her clothing and feels guilty buying brand new clothes. As a Vice President of a sustainable fashion club on her college campus, she wants to bring more community in sharing clothes with other people.

Style Guide:
October
2024

After creating tangible user personas, I utilized the information, researched my
target market, and cohesively designed a
style and brand guide for Renü.

My guide reflects e-commerce elements, while having a modern and updated look to appeal to younger college-aged women, 18-24. So, for the body copy, I chose Work Sans regular. Sans serifs are better options for mobile designs, as they are cleaner and are easier to read high-res or low res. For headings, I chose Work Sans in bold for extra punch. Renü’s logotype features an elegant, almost art nouveau typeface in Corea— adding timeless contrast to the look.
In terms of color, I strove to contribute to the solution of sustainability by utilizing an olive green color for accepting trades, coupled with rouge, a plum color. It suggests sophistication and maturity, adding depth to the palette and lovely contrast. For my other colors, I chose an off-white cashmere color that conveys simplicity, minimalism, and cleanliness—values often tied to eco-conscious living. Lastly, a mauve. It’s approachable and modern, complementing green and plum while softening the overall design, while adding a gentle warmth that contrasts the coolness of green, creating a balanced, inviting interface.

Throughout, my icons are all rounded with a semibold stroke— all formatted within the grid structure of my app with 28px. margins. The roundedness of my icons ensure approachability while contributing to my app’s modern identity.

Prototyping & Testing:
November
2024

All of November, I worked on prototyping Renü to be as seamless and clean as possible. This includes animating through Figma and Jitter, and incorporating smooth overlays to create pop-up notifications in the app.

Based on user testing, I altered elements such as buttons to be more rounded, created seamless splash page and trade confirmation animations, refined my color choices, selected only one typeface to use throughout the app, and more. All of these iterations helped bring Renü to its best and present form.

©Ansley Taylor Jordan, Renü, 2024