MGM iPhone Soundboard Apps

This project landed in my lap by accident. Well, that’s not 100% true. I made it land there…

When asked to create the landing page for our new iPhone apps, we were given screenshots of the apps that were in development at the time. Being the design snob that I am, I was taken aback by their seemingly arbitrary and non-standard construction. Not to mention its overall sloppiness (hard to read colored text, stretched or squashed button labels, poorly resized and uncorrected imagery, etc.).

I just needed to make a stink about it, but instead of just complaining about the design, I ended up taking on the job myself over the weekends and evenings that followed.

The options and soundboard screen’s orientation were turned to portrait view for better one-handed usability and to avoid the iPhone’s speaker from being covered by the user’s hand during playback of the sound. Overall design was completely re-thoughtout for a more standard experience. The images for the slideshows were retouched for best possible color representation, taking into consideration the age of the assets.

Once the app was redesigned it was a matter of creating assets for the 5 features that were getting companion apps: Rocky, Fargo, Robocop, Silence of the Lambs and Army of Darkness. Included in those assets were the icons that appear in the app. Those I took creative license, creating Ash’s chainsaw from Army, Hannibal’s mask from Lambs, Rocky’s hero pose, Robocop’s mechanical head, and of course, the woodchipper from Fargo:

The apps went on to be downloaded more than 100,000 within a relatively short period of time, and are still going strong. So far, the most popular app has been the Army of Darkness, based on the last of the Evil Dead trilogy films. It’s such a classic flick with some great quotes.

Check out the apps in iTunes: Army, Rocky, Lambs, Fargo, Robocop

Below are before and after shots of the original app design, the icons, and samples of the finished app.