Free Mobile Templates for Everyone!

So, I am finally done with the long-promised revision to our previous mobile templates, converting them to InDesign, and revising a little.

Maybe "done" is too strong a word. As well as the phrase "a little." I've put a lot more stuff in here, and we're still learning the best way to use InDesign for our purposes. It took a few hundred hours to convert everything from Freehand, and come up with new ones, and browse every project for the past three years for other versions of designs, and show it to everyone, then add in whatever components or guidelines they find missing... and you see how it took me months of spare time, and might never be done.

Which is a great thing in some ways. Templates, best practices and patterns should be living documents, and we're getting into that mode very well now. The next thing is to start revising my book regularly as well. If you want to know how to use some of these elements, especially the high level and flow charting parts, that's where it's referred to. Go grab a copy, and almost all is still valid, though you can ignore when I say I like Freehand now, I guess.

Yes, this is not just a set of fun random design elements, but a part of a system of design. We aren't trying to promote it, nor have packaged it quite the way our acquaintances (and my former co-workers and bosses) at Eight Shapes are, but if you like what you see, it's all designed to work together, and in a specific way.

Speaking of other templates, there are a lot of these around, distributed by various organizations. We've gathered up every one we've heard of on the design patterns wiki. If we missed one, please add it, or just make a comment here and I'll get around to it.

As before, typography may be an issue, since that cannot be legally distributed Our brand type is Antique Olive, Akzidenz Grotesk and Palatino. You can probably get by replacing those with Gill Sans, Helvetica and Garamond or Times, respectively.

The typography section is really interesting, but you'll want to look at it in the PDF version to get the impact. I have over time acquired a LOT of the type needed to simulate mobile displays, but can't share any of it. Some is available free (such as the Bitstream Vera Sans, or Droid faces) but I have to make you go get it, since I think it's a violation still for me to distribute it in any way.

Where are the download files?

Good question. Since we put our templates on the wiki as well, and wikis are constantly-changing, it seems easier and better to put them there, instead of leaving a blog post link to expire.

So, to get the pattern files, go to the Little Springs section of design templates, at the mobile design wiki. That link should anchor correctly even.

Please do tell me if there are any technical issues with downloading, opening, etc. Or, if anyone needs another version, like an INX for your older InDesign. If anyone wants to make updated libraries (I haven't yet) or Graffle versions or anything else, you can email me, post a link in the comments here, or just post it to the template wiki yourself.

Thank you, Steven!

For reasons that elude (and annoy) me, comments are disappearing. If you submitted one that wasn’t spammy, we’re sorry and it’s not on purpose. Please submit it again and maybe it’ll stick this time.

Oops, forgot to remove the very restrictive language from the footer, so a new export with a CC 3.0 license (and essentially no other changes) is now available.

Very useful, thanks. Here’s a set of iPhone PSD GUI elements that I also found useful: http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/2010/06/14/iphone-gui-psd-v4/

We’ve got all those other UI libraries (that we know of) out on the patterns wiki. The Teehan-Lax one was there, but an older version, so it’s now updated. Link is here, for anyone who wants to add or update any others: http://patterns.design4mobile.com/index.php/Drawing_Tools_%26_Templates#Teehan-Lax