For my typography class, we were tasked with creating a calendar
Our professor told us that we had to use a non-traditional medium and also explore a different culture. I wanted to create something that could meet those requirements and also bring my classmates together in the virtual setting so I chose to make a simple Aztec Calendar app in Adobe XD. During the presentation, I was able to share the XD preview link and have my classmates use the app as I was presenting.
Sketching
I started by brainstorming on paper how I wanted the app to work and what the scope would be. I decided that if I wanted to have the full interactive element it would have to span the whole year so I went with the most ergonomic and realistic way to make that happen given the short timeline.
User flow
The user flow was kept minimal to reflect the scope of the project and the 10-15 minutes I would have to present. I wanted users to enter, gain education on the topic, find the needed information, and exit quickly.
Construction
The Google Drive plugin was used to pull data from the internet and create an efficient workflow. Data was linked to each "date card" and filled in automatically. Once the date cards were created they were arranged and then again were sent through the Google Drive plugin to correctly date them.
365 date cards were created to make it a fully functioning "day symbol" tracking 2020-2021 Aztec Calendar.
Success?
Yes! Our class had a lot of fun comparing predictions for their birthdays and other special occasions. Some had doom predicted for them and we all had a good laugh about people's results. I'm proud of the amount of research that went into the proper execution of this project and I learned a lot about incorporating data structures into my designs.
If I were to do this again I would expand the app to include more elements of the Aztec Calendar beyond the day symbols and I would add functionality to bring the day's prediction to the home screen automatically.