The work begins, Part 2 – "Graphics needed"

Now, we needed to create the images for each screen. Correction: we needed to find someone to create the images for each screen. And it needed to be someone who could do animation.

I can draw and I can figure out a lot of things, but I had my doubts that I could figure this out—what software to get, how to use it, which file formats, how to do the animations—in a reasonable amount of time. Luckily, Johnny knew someone who charged a very reasonable rate. He didn’t live in the area, so we communicated entirely through IM and email. When he—let’s call him Sully—sent us initial samples of what he could do for us, we liked them so much we immediately said “yes, let’s do that!”

An aside on selecting graphics and styles:

It can be intimidating to make a final decision about an image that will affect the look of your product for a long time. For some of us, it keeps us up at night debating over the choices and then wondering whether we made the right choice. This is when you have to review your goals to assess how critical a particular image needs to be and give yourself a time limit. Get a friend to help you. Find something that you do like on someone else’s web site or somewhere so you have a baseline in your mind. I bet there are some good books and blogs on this subject, but Lyle and I never did find the time to look for them. We tapped a few good friends and used their reactions to help us decide.

It also can be hard to tell someone “I don’t like that” or “can you make this darker and move this over to the left?” You have to summon your inner “bossy-ness” and say what you think. Designers expect this. They expect to make some changes to the things they submit for your approval. Ask for what you want.

Now back to the story:

With Johnny, I created a list of the images—based on the wireframes—that we would need to make the "version 1" screens and, bit by bit, I sent this list to Sully. Within a week, sometimes within a day, Sully would send us his interpretations. He sent them as “png” files.

This was pretty straightforward. We went back and forth a few times to adjust the colors, change the type of balls used, add a basket for the balls, etc. Each time, Sully sent the images to me to review and, once I approved something, I sent it to Johnny. Sometimes, the developer works directly with the designer and acts as liaison between the client and designer. We found that making me the liaison worked better for us. 

At the beginning we just needed a few images. There was a static image of the tank and background with the balls and target. There was a person on the dunking seat. Sully also designed "buttons" and a menu and the logo. Later, when we were a little further along into the coding and saw how the action should work, Lyle and I went back to Sully for a second round of images for the animation of the person falling and the ball hitting the target. Sully delivered on time and billed exactly what he said he would. It was affordable and the work was good.

Now that we had the images, it was time to focus on the code behind them.