MüRm Calendar App
MÜRM is a quirky calendar app that uses illustrations/reminders to make your days to come more positive and fun.
Tools I Used Illustrator, Adobe Xd, Sketch
How Long It Took
Ongoing
Project Type
Personal Project
My Role
Creator/UI Designer
Background The idea of this app first came to me after I'd been using my bandō planner for a few months. I had absolutely fallen in love with the illustrations, cute reminders and design of the notebook; it wasn't like any planner I'd had before. Especially as a designer, every time I'd flip through the pages I'd get inspired by all of the textured patterns and colorful artwork; most days it would motivate me to exercise my creative passions more. However, I felt as though I still wasn't using it as much as I loved it. I would go days, sometimes even weeks without picking it up. Because my phone was much more accessible in my day to day schedule, I would use the reminder/ calendar app that was built in my iPhone instead of writing my to do list in my planner that I adored so much. I figured the best way to solve this dilemma was to create a app that not only had basic calendar/reminder functions, but also had a lot of personality.
What's Mürm? Mürm is a calendar app that is designed art enthusiasts or for those who want the inanimate objects in their lives to have a little more personality. It is an application that not only shows what day it is or what day thanksgiving is, but also gives users a motivational quotes, reminders for interesting holidays (such as national donut day!), and illustrated backgrounds for the month and day. In addition, Mürm also lets users set reminders for future events, lets them add notes and alerts for upcoming affairs.
User Personas Even though Mürm isn't fully developed and is still in the early stages, I felt that it was necessary to create user personas to help me fully comprehend the type of people that would use this app. Below it shows in the personas that the target audience includes tech-savvy women who are art enthusiasts ranging from the ages of 14-26 years old.
Branding Before even knowing the basic functionality of Mürm, I had a pretty clear idea of how I wanted it to look. For me, it was important for users to feel optimistic and be inspired creatively when using it. It's the very reason why I chose an array of colors that were engaging, feminine yet also calming. Since I wanted to spark creativity within users, I felt that it was necessary to have artwork that had texture, color, and looked heavily sketched/ hand drawn.
Mürm Basic Functionality One of the main functionalities of Mürm other then being a basic calendar is the ability to create events. These events can also be set as reminders, in which users can customize the title, time, and repetitions of it. Users also have the options of adding any notes and how often or when they want to get notified.
Below is a wireframe version of this feature.
Mürm Goals I had two main goals for when I was working on this personal project, the first was that I had to create all of the artwork and illustrations myself and second was that I had to do it using Sketch. As someone in the UI/UX field it's always important to know what other designers are using or what the most up to date software what is. So when I noticed that most designers were using Sketch, I decided to download the free trial and give it a shot to create wireframes, artwork, etc. I had a lot of fun creating concept art on how each months screen would differ in theme, color and content.
Mürm Concept Design The calendar portion of Mürm can be broken down into to parts. The first would be the month and the second would be the day or today. Each month would have a set background that was based on the season or would be something loosely related. For example, January would have a snowy theme since in most parts of the world (or where the target audience is) it's winter and in another month like March the background would be green with a lot of foliage to illustrate the coming of Spring or St. Patricks day. Most of the themes of the month are associated with holidays that have been taught to us since grade school and even though this would be a digital version of a calendar/planner, I didn't necessarily want to take that away from the audience.
So yes, October would definitely have a halloween theme and February would probably have some hearts.
However, for some of the months that don't have a significant holiday, for example April or June a theme that was loosely associated would be created.
The second part of the calendar portion is the today section. The today section says the current day, month, and year but also includes information about holidays that range from National Tea Day to Easter. As for the design, the background of the today screen would be based on the months theme but the artwork would adjust based on the holiday. If there was no holiday associated with that day there would be a random image with a motivational quote or phrase to keep users optimistic.
A Long Way To Go Even though I have a good idea of how I want Mürm to look, there's still a long way to go. This idea really started by me trying to make time to practice on my illustrating skills while obsessing over my planner and has evolved to an app with several hundred screens. There's several hundred more illustrations to make, more research to be done, and a lot more customization/ functionality that can take it to the next level. Nonetheless, I had loads of fun creating concepts, wireframes, and branding for this app and can't wait to see where it goes from here.
Take a gander at other projects I've worked on.
Mürm Screens
