Kitchen Kombucha and Kerning: Guest Post from Julianna Heck

Today we have a guest blogger, Julianna, amazing middle Heck sister and current advanced graphic design student at VCUarts, to share one of her class assignments.  She has been working with a group on a semester-long project that will culminate in the design of an instructional interactive media piece.  Their subject: how to make home-brewed kombucha!

We’d noticed this new drink “growing” in our grocery stores and had not yet had the guts to try it, but since Jules was embracing it in such a big way, we each had one small sip … and … we liked it!  So, Jules is here to share some of her experiences growing SCOBYs and a few of her mobile app designs.

Here’s Jules:

For the past couple of months my apartment has smelled like a kombucha tea factory. Why, do you ask? Well, I’ve been a kombucha brewing queen. I have mastered the art of home-brewed kombucha, and am now an official kombucha nerd. Though the appearance of the murky liquid looks like a potion that a toddler would make at the dinner table, kombucha is a tasty and fragrant tea filled with probiotics and other nutritious goodies that help clean and fortify the different systems in the body.

The semester-long assignment for our interaction class involved working in a group to develop a “How To” web or tablet application that would teach users a subject and then deliver a product to them.  My team decided to create an app that would teach users how to make kombucha tea at home.  I had always been curious about the cloudy tea with crazy prices and was very skeptical of the positive results.  This project was a perfect excuse to put kombucha to the test!

I am now a true believer in the nasty, icky, and oftentimes-unappealing tea that can be found in specialized food stores.  However, being a daily consumer can be a serious financial investment.  Luckily, there is another option:  home-brewed kombucha, and this app (when it’s finished) will guide you through the whole process!

Above, I have shared a couple of the screens that I have been developing.  By the end of the semester, I will have created a workable app that is clickable, scrollable, and interactive.  For now, I continue to develop the many different screens that will make up such an application.

It’s been a fun project (a little gross at times), but I’ve managed to convert Cathy and Ellen to kombucha consumption along the way, so it’s already been instructional and it isn’t even in the app store yet!

Thanks, Jules, for sharing your recent work with us!  See you at SURTEX!

I can’t wait!  (I’ll bring the ‘bucha!)