Jake Burdess
About
Unified Inbox is a global Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) company. Unified Inbox's hardware, software, and services solutions empower people around the world to simply communicate, simply collaborate, and simply post. I worked part time for Unified Inbox for a year in exchange for company equity.
“Jake is one of the few designers I’ve met who truly gets the big picture while being able to execute it as well. He’s able to break down complex aspects of branding into elegant designs - no matter whether it is a logo, website, web or mobile-based software application - without breaking the link between all of the created materials.” Toby Ruckert - CEO, Unified Inbox
https://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/unified-inbox/id660289698
Industry
Digital Products & Services
My first challenge was to redesign the brand and its associated application brands. The task was a gratifying exercise is simplicity and reduction: I removed reflections, shadows, icons and other embellishments from the box symbol, and refined the typography. The newly refined symbol then served as the template for extending the brand into the product lines.
I collaborated with my designers to create a logical user flow for onboarding, setup and general usage of the Unified Inbox iPhone app. This was no mean feat: users needed to be able to add any number of email accounts, social networks and other communication vehicles to their inbox, and visualise the message threads in a recognisable and simple way.
I designed the Chrome extension, Outbox.pro, as a single window application to function as a browser overlay. While the orange application frame had a fixed size, the white interior window was designed to contract and expand according to its contents. This paradigm posed an exciting piece of interaction design in collaboration with the development team.
I designed the public website to showcase the applications and the team involved in creating them and bringing them to market. Strong, people-centric imagery was an important part of creating engagement, as well as showing screenshots of the software where possible.
Role
As Head of Design, my responsibilities were rebranding and developing the brand, as well as ensuring the quality and usability of the company website and related applications. This included the iPhone app and Outbox.pro, a Google Chrome extension for team social publication and sharing. I also consulted on UX best practice and mentored more junior designers.
Specialty
Digital Brand Development
Skills
- Brand Identity
- Web Development
- Web App
- Web Design
- WordPress
- Mobile App
- User Interface
- User Experience
- Logo Design
Turnaround
Ongoing
Cost
$40,000