Alexander Käßner

Berlin, Germany

Product & interface designer. Currently, I design Diagrams for Mac and create my own apps in my free time at pxlwaves lab.

3d graphics, animation, app design, front-end development, icon design, mobile design, swift, ui design, ux design, web design, web developement

Isometric Blog Illustration — I recently started to get into isometric illustrations. The tricky part was to get the rotated objects like the ruler or MacBook screen right. As a start I’m quite happy with the result. PS: Diagrams now has a free trial (more). 😉
iPad Main Menu – Interaction Detail – Dropdown — The iPad Main Menu supports changing settings directly in the menu. For a choices of 2 options a segmented control works just fine. For 3 or more options an Android style Dropdown makes sense. This eliminates going another navigation-layer deeper as iOS currently does. For more information take a look at the website!
iPad Main Menu – Interaction Detail – Icon Switch — The menu icon in the dock shows which apps are open. As a small detail the frontmost app is the active one. Though the focus of the app is mainly indicated by darkening the inactive app in the background. For more information take a look at the website!
iPad Main Menu – Interaction Detail – App Switch — When using Split Screen or Slide Over, the menu shows an app switch in the upper left corner. The menu always tries to open the right menu based on the context (app of last interaction or keyboard focus). Though if you have to change the menus you can do so using this switch. PS: The inactive apps get dimmed in the background to show the focus on the active app menu. For more information tak...
iPad Main Menu – Interaction Detail – Show Menu — To show the iPad Main Menu just swipe up the dock and tap the dedicated menu button. It’s always located on the leftmost position in the dock, thus very consistently positioned and reachable across the whole OS. Alternatively, pro users can use a 3-finger-tap to show the menu immediately without opening the dock. For more detailed information take a look at the website!
iPad Main Menu – Website — This is the website I made for my iPad Main Menu concept. Check it out to read about all the details of my study: https://ipadmenu.study
iPad Main Menu – iPadOS 14 Concept — What would a main menu look like on iPad? I’ve explored this question for my thesis this year. Now, with Apple’s new focus on iPadOS my resulting concept shows it’s possible to make the iPad a true computer replacement. Check out the website: https://ipadmenu.study … and video: https://vimeo.com/404389115
Diagrams for Mac - App Website — The launch website of Diagrams for Mac
Diagrams for Mac – Trailer Video — Last week Lukáš (developer) and I released our new app Diagrams – a brand new diagram editor for Mac. Diagrams allows you to create beautiful, structured diagrams. As fast as you think. The trailer was made with Apple’s Motion. For the screen recordings I used QuickTime. Watch the full trailer with sound on Vimeo!
Volkswagen Factory out of Voxels — This year I did a 6 month internship at Volkswagen Design. I had the opportunity to look behind the scenes and work on future interfaces with an awesome team! As a small tribute to this interesting times I made the famous VW factory with MagicaVoxel. Still improving my voxel rendering skills though.
macOS Cursors for Diagrams App — These are the custom cursors made for Diagrams App. From left to right they are used for: • re-attaching a connection line end • modify the connection line route • drawing a new connection line • resizing the elements The last one is redrawn from Keynote's cursor, as for some reason they are not available as a system default.
Diagrams App – Canvas Interaction (Drawing Diagram) — The interaction to draw connections between elements. There are two ways of creating connections. 1) You either can use the "hover menu" that automatically appears on hovering. This will create a connection pointing to side where the shortest connection is. 2) Or you can use SHIFT to directly pin the connections at specific sides of the element. This is intended for the power users who want m...
Diagrams App - macOS Toolbar Icons — These are the current toolbar icons for the upcoming app Diagrams. The type icon gets enabled when you select an element or relationship. The .png button will allow you to drag and drop the button to quick export the diagram to wherever you want.
Change Buddy Logo - Chatbot — Say hello to your "Change Buddy". This is the logo of my brothers new app. It's a chat bot that helps you keep track of your changes/goals. Download App (currently only available in Germany)
Change Buddy - iOS App (Chatbot) — I've recently helped my brother to design his new app called Change Buddy. It's an app that helps you to track your changes/goals. For example reading more books or eating less candy. Download App (currently only available in Germany) PS: Yes this video was made with Rotato (formerly Design Camera). 😉
Voxel Room — Heavily inspired by musho’s post, I've recreated my own room to try out MagicaVoxel. It’s an impressive tool for voxel renderings. You should definitely check it out if you are into 3D!
Toolbar Icons for macOS — A while ago I made some toolbar icons for an upcoming macOS productivity app. The client decided to use other icons for the final release. I still like them and thought I share them with you.
Diagrams for macOS App Icon — Diagrams is an upcoming Mac application for creating structured diagrams. It allows you to easily create flowcharts, functional diagrams or anything else. It leverages a semantic approach which enables better suited user interactions for the creation of diagrams. I've designed the app icon based on the logo. You can check it out on https://diagrams.app
SpeakLine Mac App Icon — Over the last year I've redeveloped my first macOS project. This time I've moved the code base to Swift. So this is the first real Swift macOS app. SpeakLine is a small and handy text to speech tool. It has a simple UI and allows you to import text from text files, select from different voices and export your read out text to an audio file. Check it out, it's free!
MacRoumors redesign (part II) — Last semester I participated in a digital typography course at my university. The task was to redesign one website with focus on typography. I've chosen MacRumors. My goal was to bring the look and feel closer to the Apple platform(s) with rounded corners, bold typography and the SF Pro font. Don't forget to check out the full design in the attachments! (Compared to the current design)
MacRumors redesign (part I) — Last semester I participated in a digital typography course at my university. The task was to redesign one website with focus on typography. I've chosen MacRumors. My goal was to bring the look and feel closer to the Apple platform(s) with rounded corners, bold typography and the SF Pro font. I took the opportunity to cut the articles on the main site as they force you to scroll a lot. And you...
Portfolio Website refresh (again) — After about 1.5 years I've redesigned my website again. It still has the same base-layout, but now with subpages for each project and many improved details. www.alexkaessner.de
MyLoans - Apple Watch App Icon & UI — The upcoming MyLoans update will bring Apple Watch support. I've simplified the app icon for the watch a little to keep it recognizable on the very small scale on the watch.
MacDown Touch Bar Icons — Quite some time ago I've helped to design Touch Bar and Toolbar Icons for MacDown coming in on of the next updates. Just like the toolbar it is still WIP, but very complete. Checkout this Github issue to see the progress. Edit: The Touch Bar is available since Version 0.7.2!

← Prev Next →

Loading more…