Today's Ranger Snapshot comes from Seattle-based designer Rick Murphy. We've been following his work for awhile and really admire the work he's done on his Seattle print. We chatted with him recently to get more insight into how he created the poster.

1) We really love the work you did on the Seattle Poster, especially the use of orange on the Space Needle. How did the city inform your design choices? What design decisions do you think work best in the poster?  

The geometry choices come from our skyline being made up of vertical buildings and angular mountains. I find that limiting yourself to a small a set of design rules helps decision making and gives your work a cohesive finish. Everything here was drawn from the vertical, horizontal or forty-five degree angle. The objects that didn’t immediately lend themselves to this style were “pushed through it” and ended up with the best solutions.

For most of 2012 (the year I worked on this project), the Space needle was painted orange to celebrate its 50th birthday. Orange was its original color when it was built for the 1962 World’s Fair. I was limiting myself to four colors and you’ll generally need two shades of any hue to render lighting. This led me to choose a light and dark color from the orange side of the wheel and obviously the same technique went into selecting the blues for the sea, sky and dark shadows.

2) We also really love how you incorporated many landmarks from  the Washington State Ferry System in your United Pixelworkers t-shirt. Why did you choose the ones you did? If you had more time, what would you change?

The shirt and print share similar landmarks in the same way that the Puget Sound region shares its features with Seattle. The brilliant thing about riding the ferries from downtown is that you can remove all of the loud elements of the city by simply walking on one of these boats. That is all I did when creating the United Pixelworkers shirt. The concept worked well for them because a lot of people actually commute to work on these things.

3) We saw on your Twitter that you enjoy Game of Thrones. Have you ever thought of doing a poster or t-shirt for the show, or any show that you're currently addicted to?

It's funny you ask a TV content related question. Most of my time is  spent  working on an iOS TV app (BuddyTV). I've ran into a few walls trying to use imagery from TV shows without proper permissions. I'm not sure how far I'd get trying to illegally distribute a poster with Geoffrey's face on it.  I would do one if asked. For sure.

Know of a great designer or design that we should feature? Email us: hello@forrst.com.

Note that for mobile, since plugins aren't supported on mobile browsers, the design responsively changes to an email capture (which will later send an email reminder). This was fairly easy to accomplish using Foundation.

Another point we made was to give the add-on credibility and validation. Realistically, and rightly so, no one wants to install software unless they feel safe. We included some logos from press publications that have picked us up, as well as actual embedded tweets to add the "real" human validation element. We ended up going with only 3 tweets (not six as shown above).

The main challenge we faced in our previous iteration, based on stats from KissMetrics / Mixpanel, was battling the drop off rates during installation. Users would click the download button, but some would not advance onward. Chrome, a simple two-click, install performed the best. Both Safari and Firefox require an extrea step, and it seems enough that some users bail. To combat this we have a popup modal appear with instructions. There is probably still be room for improvement here though.

Once the plugin is installed we want to give the user a positive experience and help them understand how to use it as quickly as possible. To do this we create a simple tutorial that appears on the success page (seen only after the install is completed).

If they navigate through the tutorial successfully, we ask them if they'd like to share with their friends / social networks. Any thoughts on a way to make it more engaging?

We’d love your feedback on any of -- the overall design, onboarding, user experience flow! Is it clear what the plugin does? Would you install it? Would you share it? If you do install it, any feedback on the tutorial followed directly after the installation? And any other feedback is, of course, welcome!

I would love feedback from you guys. You all are really very helpful. :)

@erraziB @ryantriddle @renwalker @mkantariya @LauraMoraiti @Cre8aRt4LifE @harshil @ibie @anevins2 @asifaleem @sarah_edwards @emi_cloud @samsu @madanpatil @dimple @RobinSchreiner @JohnR88

Below is Actual pixel design. Please check.

Which variation would you pick? And why? Would you make any changes to the existing concepts?

Best regards, Tiago

Edit: Thanks for all the feedback and response guys, it's very much appreciated! I'll be posting the final result here once it's done.

Today's Ranger Snapshot comes from Anthony Lagoon. He's the founder of Underbelly, whose work on the photo sharing app JustFamily caught our eye. We asked him more about where the idea for the app came from and some of the challenges in building it.

1. The one thing that really impressed us was how a person could organize their precious family memories. What inspired you to create the app? What design decisions do you think work in the app?

I'd say our inspiration comes from the fact that lots of new technology seems to be designed for individuals — it's all about your user ID. That's true for photo apps too. But family photos aren't about the individual, and there's really no good family photo management solution out there. In the past, my family had a big chest full of photos. No matter who took them, or what camera they were shot with, this dusty old chest was where they all ended up. Every so often someone would open it up, and we would all gather around to look at them, hearing the stories behind each photo.

I guess you could say we're trying to bring your family photos to life by allowing your family to see them, create journal entries and albums with them, and just enjoy them again as a family. Keeping all of your photos backed up, and organized is a challenge for anyone. We just wanted to make that easier for families.

There was some debate amongst the team around keeping the "journal" tab in the app, but after we watched people use the app, we found it to really resonate well with people. They love the concept of creating stories around certain photos from their library. It just goes to show you really have to put your ideas out there, and see if it works. But be prepared to iterate quickly after you learn from it.

2.  People take tons of pictures with their smartphones and post them in a variety of places so organizing that chaos seems like a daunting challenge. What were some of the difficulties in deciding how people could organize their photos? If you had more time, is there anything you'd change and why? 

It's good to hear I'm not alone. So many photos, on so many computers and phones that even a nerd like me can't keep them all straight. We've got some really exciting things coming soon that will help with organizing photos. I can't say too much, but I can say it will be fun to organize your photos. Not only that, but your entire family can help organize them too. So you upload your DSLR pics, and someone else tags them along with the app doing as much as it can with the metadata to keep them all organized. 

As far as combining photos from different places, one of the things that work best for my wife and I is that all of the photos we upload go into the same library. For other people, you can create shared collections. There's a lot we're doing in these areas to make it easier and more straight-forward, but we're currently iterating on smaller interaction changes, testing to see what works, and what doesn't.

3. Tells us a bit more about the bell jar icon. We really admire the colors and the detailing on both the jar and the lid. Where did the inspiration come from to have a bell jar represent the app? 

The inspiration for the Jar icon for the app came from the founder's love of the beach. People collect small trinkets and memories in jars. Whether it be notes, small toys, or sea shells, a jar represents the "collecting" of memories in a fun and easy way. Find something you want to keep and remember? Just drop it in your keepsake jar. The original jar icon was done by the talented SoftFacade. The app icon was made to be a simpler version that would work at smaller scales.

4. We see from your personal site and your Twitter that you're a family man. How has your family inspired and informed your work? 

My family lives in different places across the United States. Designing the JustFamily app has really been a fun challenge because it allows us to be closer despite the distance. For me, getting my family to accept and use the app has been the constant test to see if it works. Because when things don't make sense, you can bet that they are the first to let me know.

How Would You Post From a Mobile Device?

We highlighted our thoughts on how posting from a smaller device would work. We wanted to know whether you would create full-on posts with screenshots from your phone. We got some great feedback from @anevins2, @cgoodwyn, @rowanu, @JGallardo and a few others. Seems most of you would prefer leaving comments or use your mobile device to browse other posts.

To Collapse or Not to Collapse

We've gone completely Mobile First with the redesign. One of the things we've considered is whether the Post Stream should be a list view or an expanded view. We even ran a Verify preference test to see which one everyone preferred. 64% of those who took the test preferred the expanded view.

Bringing Back Post Types

One of the things we've considered was brining back post types. We want to make it easier for everyone to frame their posts — asking for feedback, sharing insight or asking a question. We got some valuable feedback from @jakiestfu about the developers in the community, sharing some insightful ideas.

We've got a few more sneak peeks in the works in the coming weeks and we want to get your feedback on what we're working on!

Today's Ranger Snapshot comes from Eddie Lobanovskiy, a designer out of Sarasota, FL. We recently come across his latest project, a social-locator app called Close. We were impressed by the navigation and the animations he employed. So we reached out and asked him a few questions about it.

1.  The one thing about Close that really caught our eye was the side menu animation. How did you come up with that idea and what are some of the challenges in getting something like that to work?

What really inspired me for the side menu came from our main flipping animation on our timeline.  I like to keep my designs consistent and true to make them feel complete.  Getting any animation to work is always a touchy subject.  Thankfully I’m working with a top notch team that can get the job done.

2. There's a lot of intricate and wonderful interactions in the app, especially in the navigation, which you showcased in a video. What are some of the design decisions that you're most proud of and why? Is there anything you'd do differently?

During the design process of this app, I had to always remind myself to “think simple”.  It’s actually much harder than you think to “think simple."  We started out with a completely different set of designs and interactions and quickly realized that we need to stop what we were doing and strip everything down to basics.  After we took the "think simple" approach to design, that’s really when the design and interactions came to light.  

The only thing I would have done different is to take the "think simple" approach right from the beginning.  You’d be surprised how hard it is for a designer to force him/herself to do this.  Try it, you’ll see what I mean.

3. We've noticed that sketching is very important part of your process and many of them are very detailed. You're also a very talented freehand artist. Who are some of your artistic heroes and how have they influenced your work?

Sketching is indeed very important to me.  There are no boundaries with sketching.  When using software, it makes things very limited and being a designer, you need to feel free :).

There is so much talent online you can learn from on sites like Dribbble, Forrst and Behance, but if I was to mention any names I’d have to say, Karem Suer, Ben Cline and Eric Hoffman. They are all experts in the UI/UX field, their work speaks for itself.

Know of a great designer or design that we should feature? Email us: hello@forrst.com.

The version without the label :

The version with explicit label

Version 3 with a relooking of the icon

Another attempt at creating the icon

Specially I would love feedback of... @erraziB @ryantriddle @renwalker @mkantariya @LauraMoraiti @Cre8aRt4LifE @harshil @ibie @anevins2 @asifaleem @sarah_edwards @emi_cloud @samsu @madanpatil @dimple @RobinSchreiner @JohnR88

Today's Ranger Snapshot comes from our friends at Octopus Creative. They've been working on redefining their branding process as well as giving their site a refresh. We recently came across the icon work they were doing and wanted to learn more. So we spoke with Octopi James Hobbs about it.

1. We're continually impressed by the work you guys put out. One thing that's really caught our eye is your icon work, and you've done a whole set involving your own branding process. What were the challenges in trying to distill your process into a series of glyphs?

First of all, thanks for the kind words. Iconography is an area that has been a major focus for us recently. We have just redefined our branding process, which gave us the unique opportunity to create some icons for ourselves.

Most of our clients already have a pretty solid understanding of design. However, not all of them fully understand the process that is involved in creating a visual identity from the ground up. Instead of just taking them through each stage, we wanted to help them visualize the process for themselves. We decided to break down our branding process into eight phases (Analyze, Research, Brainstorm, Sketch, Focus, Refine, Explore, Finalize) and designed a corresponding icon for each stage. The glyphs and supporting copy will form the basis for a document that we send to clients when we engage on a project.

The main challenge in the design of these icons was being able to visually represent some of the less tangible phases of the branding process. For example, the "Refine" stage. There were some abstract thoughts before a solution was apparent. In the end, we came up with the concept of a diamond that seemed to reflect the idea of refinement well.

Another difficulty was maintaining simplicity while representing complex ideas. For instance, our initial idea for the "Brainstorm" phase was to depict a whiteboard or mind map – both of which would have resulted in an icon that was too complex. After stripping back the layers, we arrived at a visual as simple and seemingly obvious as a brain.

2. You're also in the middle of a site redesign and we love some of the illustrations you've done for it.  What design decisions do you think really work?  If you could, what would you do differently?

Thanks! Yes, we are currently redesigning the Octopus Creative website for launch later this summer. The present site has been up for a while now isn’t doing the greatest job of representing how we have evolved as a company. The fact that it only shows about half our current team is a testament to the fact that it’s been on the back burner for a while.

We created a series of nine illustrations to represent the culture and philosophies of Octopus. It was important for us to have the space to create a narrative around each one, so we needed more than a set of icons. In the end, we opted for simple line illustrations with supporting copy in each area of the website.

Our team had a lot of fun working on these, with some lively discussion around the best way to visually represent each concept. While the rocket was an easy choice when talking about launching startups, other ideas were a lot harder to express. We went in circles trying to convey the concept of "Functional Design". After a heavy brainstorm session, we agreed that the most functional designs are found in nature. The nautilus shell was the perfect choice as it also represents the golden ratio.

Specific design decisions like each illustration breaking the top of the bounding circle, and the consistent line weight, allowed us to create a harmonious set out of what are essentially very different concepts. The use of a single color helped to ensure that the illustrations wouldn’t overpower the rest of the content or get in the way of the work we are displaying.

Although, I’m not sure we would have done anything specifically differently with these illustrations, I have always been interested in seeing what they would look like animated – that rocket is just begging to take off!

3.You guys are located in Santa Cruz, CA. How does being so close to the beach and water impact your work? Do you guys ever go for surfing breaks?

Although it’s pretty much a criminal offense in Santa Cruz, I’ll be honest and say that none of us really surf. There are several Octopi that are threatening to learn this year though, so it might not be too long before we don the wetsuits.

The surrounding landscape is a huge source of inspiration for us on a daily basis. We’re lucky enough to be located just a stone’s throw from the Pacific ocean, which helps us balance the digital world with the natural one.

Personally, it’s easy for me lose to motivation and inspiration when I’ve been sitting in front of the screen for a few hours. A design problem will present itself with no apparent solution. Rather than tear my hair out, I’ll jump on the bike and take a ride down the coast for twenty minutes. By the time I get back to the office, the answer will be right in front of me. Breaks like this give my subconscious a chance to consider the problem while my conscious mind takes a break. We support this culture throughout the team, as we truly believe it helps us push out work of the highest quality.

Santa Cruz is a pretty magical place to work as a designer. It’s close enough to the Bay Area and Silicon Valley to work with some amazing companies, but with enough distance to maintain the laid-back atmosphere of a beach town.