My Work   –   About   –   Linkedin   –   Resume


Club Sandwich

Visual Identity, Food Design, Brand Design

What’s your name?

Editorial Design, Illustration, Animation, Typesetting, Digital Storytelling

From the Kitchen of

Design for Interaction, Illustration, Visual Identity

Egg On Toast Studio

Creative Direction, Food Styling, Culinary Curation, Visual Identity

Toast

Book Design, Illustration, Photography

Tutti

 (PAGE IN PROGRESS)
Brand Identity, Logo Design, Type Design, Editorial Design

Food Waste PSA

Campaign, Visual Identity, Illustration, Animation

QUA: Travel Planning

UI/UX Prototyping, Web Design, VIsual Identity System

Luis Barragan:
Design Hero

Print Design, Motion Graphics, Interaction + UI design, 

Art over the years





Instagram
Linkedin
©2024 Gretchen Kupferschmid

Selected Projects → QUA: Travel Planning 

Teamates: 
Jessica Lai, Olivia Luk, Anthony PanUI/UX Prototyping, Web Design, Visual Identity SystemTimeline: 6 weeksTools: Figma, HTML/CSS, Adobe CC (Ai)








Inspired by the term “quaquaversal,” meaning moving or happening in every direction instantaneously, QUA is a travel planning application designed to help people add a little more spontaneity in their newest adventures.  

My team and I researched, designed, tested and prototyped a web application that generates activity suggestions based on users’ momentary feelings, allows them to both visualize structure in their trips as well as feel comfortable taking travel by ear. 








Problem Space




Trip planning can be a stressful and arduous process, and even with the most experienced in planners, unforeseen circumstances may still arise. As risk-taking and spontaneity are a natural part of the travel process that may even lead to more exciting, organic experiences we asked the questions… 



  1. How can we help young adults reduce the pressure of going through excessive planning for trips?
  2. How can we help young adults be prepared for unexpected circumstances during travel?
  3. How can we help young adults live in the moment when traveling?



Final Solution














An algorithm that can generate suggestions based on your current emotions and interests.








A modular framework that was created for a flexible schedule that has a clear organization of plans.







Research 

We conducted research through a variety of methods, starting with reverse assumptions. This is when we started to recognize the assumption and myth that “people always plan trips”.

Following that direction, we used contextual inquiry, speed dating, direct storytelling, empathy maps, affinity diagramming, user journey mapping, and prototyping to further investigate how people felt about spontaneous travel and explore different solutions.






Quotes




During our interviews, we focused on investigating how people view the inevitable and how they problem solve to minimize the cost. 

This made us realize that the problem space was related to the idea of young adults finding balance between comfort and stepping out of their comfort zone to learn in an unfamiliar environment.



Insights




Goal
avoid over planning, allow users to experience their travel in the moment, and come back with unique stories and experiences.

Target audience
young adults who are open to the idea of adding spontaneity into their travels in a playful matter.

Elements of Consideration
Scale — general to specific location
Time — efficiency and cost of time
Safety — sense of security




Branding























Looking at visual imagery from luggage tags, transportation tickets, stamps, and receipts, we wanted to play with quirky and playful receipt type and heavy weighted san serifs. These colorful elements would be used for the brand website, social media, and merchandise.













Since the product and brand website being a more colorful and playful with it’s visual design, we needed to make sure the tool itself wasn’t too overpowering in personality, because it can become too complex and distracting to use, which takes away from the functionality. 


While staying within the same color palette, the actual planning application's UI aims for a more minimal and clean work space with a touch of colorful options customizable to use for organization purposes.




Concept Development




mapping out the user flow and developing the UI