Days 1-15
Days 16-30
The brief
Work on a daily passion project for 30 days, doing whatever you feel passionate about. Afterwards, expand upon this passion to transform it into a tangible product.
overview
January/ February 2021
Timeline — 8 Weeks
Deliverables—
Share daily explorations/entries – summary of process and outcomes
Show a grid of all 20–25 outcomes
Idea development for final project
Behind-the-scenes process demonstration shared on social media
Explanation of marketability/intended audience/release strategy
Show final product, mockups, and promotional social media posts
The project
For my passion project, I illustrated a different Japanese word that depict some sort of poetic meaning. Afterwards, I decided to use these assets and create a the Japanese-English dictionary app of my dreams. As a Japanese major, dictionary apps are no stranger to me. Currently I have three different Japanese language apps on my phone: one for vocabulary, one for grammar, and one for kanji. I wanted to create the best dictionary app on the market that combines all three.
The main hero of this project was the illustrated vocabulary words. Each day the user opened the app, they would be greeted with a word of the day accompanied with an illustration. This would encourage bite-size daily studying with a visual mnemonic for memory retainment.
In addition, I posted every illustration on Instagram for 30 days.
Introducing Kanbi,
a Japanese-English learning dictionary app that lets you learn vocabulary, kanji, grammar, and other language points in an intuitive and bite size manner.
UI thumbnails & user flow
I wanted the UI to reflect my illustration design, so most everything is round including the bounding boxes, buttons, and iconography.
LOGO LOCK-UPS
The user can also browse past words of the day. There are filters so they can view by date, genre, type of word, and randomized.
WOrd of the day feature
Each word of the day has an illustration representing the meaning of the word. As more and more days pass, at some point every word will have an accompanying illustration. Some words can even have multiple illustrations and the user can view variations by swiping on the header.
Vocabulary dictionary feature
Each vocabulary word includes a definition, type of word, kun yomi and on yomi for each kanji, definitions of root kanji used, and examples sentences for usage practice.
kanji dictionary
All kanji is divided by Japanese Language Proficiency Test categories (N1-N5) for easy study use. Each kanji information page includes on yomi, kun yomi, root definition, and example words that use that particular kanji.
grammar dictionary
Grammar is also divided into the JLPT categories. The grammar information page includes formation structure, a definition, and example sentences for usage practice.
Kanbi flashcards
Also available are flashcards that showcase the Word of the Day illustrations for those who learn in a more hands on way. Each flashcard has a QR code that the user can scan to open up that particular word in the app.
Social Media Word of the Day
instagram campaign
Words of the Day will also be posted on the Kanbi Instagram app allowing even more access to bite size vocabulary studying. Production videos of the illustration process can also be promoted. Users can post illustration with #kanbiwotd to submit their art to be used for official Word of the Day illustrations on the Kanbi app.