The Command Guru Project

It’s been a very lazy holiday season for me as I thoroughly enjoyed Christmas through New Years with my family and recharged from a very eventful 2009. I’m finally getting back into the swing of things and wanted to take a second and write about my experience as a member of the Command Guru Project. For those who didn’t hear about it Command Guru is the brainchild of Shado, an Italian TV production company, in which 10 designers and developers set out to create an iPhone app in 7 days. The project took place in Venice, Italy from December 4–10th. The project lead was none other than Aaron Hillegass the famous mac developer, author and owner of Big Nerd Ranch.

I lucked into taking part in the project through a friend Andrea Gelati, owner of the software company Doseido, who is associated with Shado. I have to admit that I had no idea it would be broadcasted live when I agreed to take part in the project, and while I was a little nervous about the concept of a camera over my shoulder, I’m glad that I didn’t hesitate. From generating the concept to the submission to the app store we had 7 days to complete the whole thing. You can always go back and watch the highlights from the show, and Shado is planning on producing a documentary-of-sorts for the entire week, release date TBA.

There Is No “I” In Team

As someone who works from home I was a little nervous about working with a team again. It’s one thing to work on a project in which you are a contractor for a larger agency, and another to actually be in an office right next to everyone. Those who know me personally know that I can get a bit OCD about the work that I do, and (if I’m being honest with myself) can become a little opinionated when it comes to conflicting views. I tend to base most of my design decisions on good logic so when I get one of those “ah I just don’t like it” comments, my head can start to spin.

The team was split up between 8 developers and 2 designers. While I was excited to meet everyone I was mostly nervous about working with the other designer Max Schoening, the creative talent behind the much anticipated Cloud App. I’ve never worked that close to another designer so my main concern was a conflict in design direction; beyond arguing the logic behind design decisions I had to be prepared for the differences in style and goals each of us was going to have for the application.

I’m glad to say that on both accounts things could not have gone better. The developers on the team were very respectful of our opinions and justifications for design and UX decisions, and Max and I got along extremely well for 2 OCD designers!

Ah, Venice

Venice, and Italy as a whole, was all that I could have imagined. It was beautiful, peaceful and a place that I definitely plan on revisiting with my family. The food was great and the wine was definitely a step up from what I’m use to. I’ve posted plenty of photos on flickr for your enjoyment. The entire place did smell of fish (I learned that they use it in their fertilizer) but I was acclimated by the second day. We stayed in a wonderful bed and breakfast, and I enjoyed a 1 mile walk each morning to the Big Rock office where we shot the event. Every night we ate at the same little family owned restaurant, which always felt like we were guests in the owner’s dining room rather than customers at his place of business. The atmosphere and friendly manner made you feel like you were a long time friend of the family, and each meal was more enjoyable than the last.

On the last day the Shado team took us on a tour of Venice City which was a photographers dream. Beyond the expected imagery of gondolas and arching water walkways, I was overwhelmed by all of the antique details that the city held and wished that I could have had another day just to venture on my own, taking photos of all the personalized door knockers.

The Final Product

In the end, as you may already know by following the broadcast, we did not finish the app. There was a “completed” version which was submitted to the app store, but it fell a bit short of our intended goal and was not 100% functional. On the first day we discovered that the web service developer dropped out of the project and developing a web-service-dependent app without the web service is next to impossible. Jim Matthews, the developer behind Fetch and a member of the team, decided to put his Cocoa hat away and write the web service but we we’re already too far behind to complete the project as scheduled. It was a big sacrifice on Jim’s part, and only because of him were we able to get the app to it’s final state.

As far as the design end of the project, Max and I completed majority of our work way ahead of schedule. The remaining time we used to obsess over the app icon and spent quite a bit of time providing some viewer entertainment by answering questions posted on Twitter and debating over the difference between 1px adjustments to just about everything. If you’re interested in seeing the work you can always download the PSDs from the Wikimeety’s Subversion repository.

My Take Away

In the end I consider it a huge privilege to have taken part in the project. I don’t know if it’s the equivalent of saying that I was a member of the first Real World, but nevertheless it was a great learning experience. Meeting everyone and making new friends reminded me that “friending” someone only goes so far; it’s nice to finally meet some of the people you IM or follow. Working with another designer was a learning experience for me and I couldn’t have asked for a better partner than Max; I gained a great source for inspiration and design critique. It was also nice to visit Europe for the first time and I definitely plan on taking my wife there for an extended vacation to enjoy what I only got a glimpse of.