CALMA

What if I just want to get away, right now?

CALMA is a personal mobile app concept that I worked on briefly between other projects. The idea is simple and singular: I'd like to find a beautiful outdoor space near me. My wife and I kept discovering these great parks and streams for months after moving to a new house, so we brainstormed this together.

Let's make it fast

Sometimes you just need a break to head outside, so the idea was in a tap or two, you could be on your way someplace new. We thought up tons of the usual features like saving favorites, social media sharing, adding ratings and photos.. but the thing it HAD to have, was a "GO NOW" feature. Grab, my coordinates and show me the nearest park, cave or hiking trail and let's get going.

Let's make it customizable

One of the really powerful things about being out in nature is that it can be a very personal thing. I like the beach, but I'm a forest & stream person -- that setting just speaks to me. We added filters to the concept that included things like "great sunset", "less than [X] miles away", "not crowded".

Examples up-front

To get bring that sense of nature right to the login screen, I played with some visual design that allows the same types of places used in tags and filters display as backgrounds. The idea of having relevant tags overlayed on the background, serving to educate the user on the types of descriptors they may find in the app.