Contributing to open source projects. Sharing back to the community.

iGlance is an open source utility for MacOS displaying core system data

Role: Design contributor

Team: People on github

Url: Github repo

TL;DR

As well as sharpening my core skills, I like offering my skills to small open source projects. It a great way to expose your potential but it's also great to meet new people. During the lock down I had to keep myself busy so I decided to give back to the open source community and offered my design contribution to iGlance a Free macOS utitlity app to monitor your computer.

Why

As an active user of the software I thought it would be nice to help the founders make their product look and feel more robust and pro.

The original version

iglance_01.jpg

"The current client is barebone and did not get much love"

The new version

After submiting design options on the github repo we found a way to implement my suggestions. The app is simpler and more modern.

undefined

"LightUI preview"

undefined

"DarkUi preview"

Redesigned assets

Iconography

Starting by working on the UI elements was the piece of work I takled. Knowing that refactoring softwares can be difficult I forked the repo and looked at the assets powering their UI. I then recreated a consistent set of Icons which I then shared back to the repo.


undefined

"New bespoke side bar icons"


Menu bar icons

undefined

"All new menu bar icons fit for Big Sure"

Dock iCon

undefined

"New big sure dock icon"

Most of those UI improvements have now been released and added to the live software.

Learnings

Sometimes as designers it is good to expose ourselves. Provide unsolicited contribution. Help people do things and accept that they might not need your help. Most of the time, especially open source software, contributors are super happy to have choice and new ideas. So if you come accross an open source project and think you can improve it. Do it...