RetailBox

Redesigning the world’s travel pass, in your pocket.

RetailBox started as a hobbyist project with a simple idea — what if anyone could have the world's greatest places in their pocket. It grew from there into something with real ambition, built around breathtaking environments and screensavers that don't just sit in the background but pull you somewhere new.

Built bottom-up and refined through beta into a full App Store release, every detail was considered. Beautifully native across iPhone and iPad, in light and dark, it feels at home on the platform while staying distinctly its own. RetailBox+ takes it further, connecting subscribers with rich narrated articles on the world's best destinations and opening up a deeper catalogue of exclusive content.

Year

2020-21

Scope

Product Design, Visuals

Client

RetailBox

Platform

iOS, iPadOS

Introducing RetailBox

A totally new way to discover the world’s best places, from SF to Beijing.

Designed to bring the best places in the world right to you, RetailBox is built around experience and adventure. In rich 4K detail, you can dive into the world's deepest oceans and swim with jellyfishes, practically feel the Great Wall in China, take in the staggering scenery in Marrakech, or enjoy every detail from the rich sunsets in San Francisco.

Always catch the latest
The latest content is always front and centre, so you can't miss it. Jump into this week's action or scroll back to see a timeline view with everything from the past few months.
Explore a huge library
Explore an enormous catalogue of rich content across landscapes, cities, mountains, deserts and beyond.
See what’s trending
Keep up with what everyone's watching with trending content, directly in Search. Never miss a threatric release or beautiful underwater scenery.
Discover beautiful content
Immersive screen saver pages provide detail on location, photographer, quality and related content, and save your favourites to watch in your Library later.

Always catch the latest
The latest content is always front and centre, so you can't miss it. Jump into this week's action or scroll back to see a timeline view with everything from the past few months.
Explore a huge library
Explore an enormous catalogue of rich content across landscapes, cities, mountains, deserts and beyond.
See what’s trending
Keep up with what everyone's watching with trending content, directly in Search. Never miss a threatric release or beautiful underwater scenery.
Discover beautiful content
Immersive screen saver pages provide detail on location, photographer, quality and related content, and save your favourites to watch in your Library later.

Always catch the latest
The latest content is always front and centre, so you can't miss it. Jump into this week's action or scroll back to see a timeline view with everything from the past few months.
Explore a huge library
Explore an enormous catalogue of rich content across landscapes, cities, mountains, deserts and beyond.
See what’s trending
Keep up with what everyone's watching with trending content, directly in Search. Never miss a threatric release or beautiful underwater scenery.
Discover beautiful content
Immersive screen saver pages provide detail on location, photographer, quality and related content, and save your favourites to watch in your Library later.

Distinctly personal

Full of personality, and reflecting yours.

Built to be both personal and expressive, RetailBox's unique character and style blends beautifully with a user's profile and preferences.

With custom profiles, appearance options, playlists, a personal library and more, RetailBox is distinctly personal and gives full control so you can make it feel your own, while remaining private.

Personalisation at the core
Distinct user profiles complete with avatars, control over fonts and appearance and more, help make your experience feel more personalised to your preferences and taste.
Create your profile
Add your profile, favourite content categories, follow photographers and more. Your profile is designed to reflect the full diversity of you.
Build dynamic playlists
With dynamic playlists, you can save your favourite content and seamlessly play back a set of looping screen savers however you like.
Access to all our favourites
Recommended Picks, Favourites, Seasonal Suggestions and other favourites curated by the RetailBox team, are easy to find and edit in the Playlists tab in RetailBox 6.1 or later.
Queue saved screen savers
With the Up Next queue, you can add screen savers to your queue with a tap and start enjoying immediately after. Edit, reorder and loop as you like.

Personalisation at the core
Distinct user profiles complete with avatars, control over fonts and appearance and more, help make your experience feel more personalised to your preferences and taste.
Create your profile
Add your profile, favourite content categories, follow photographers and more. Your profile is designed to reflect the full diversity of you.
Build dynamic playlists
With dynamic playlists, you can save your favourite content and seamlessly play back a set of looping screen savers however you like.
Access to all our favourites
Recommended Picks, Favourites, Seasonal Suggestions and other favourites curated by the RetailBox team, are easy to find and edit in the Playlists tab in RetailBox 6.1 or later.
Queue saved screen savers
With the Up Next queue, you can add screen savers to your queue with a tap and start enjoying immediately after. Edit, reorder and loop as you like.

Personalisation at the core
Distinct user profiles complete with avatars, control over fonts and appearance and more, help make your experience feel more personalised to your preferences and taste.
Create your profile
Add your profile, favourite content categories, follow photographers and more. Your profile is designed to reflect the full diversity of you.
Build dynamic playlists
With dynamic playlists, you can save your favourite content and seamlessly play back a set of looping screen savers however you like.
Access to all our favourites
Recommended Picks, Favourites, Seasonal Suggestions and other favourites curated by the RetailBox team, are easy to find and edit in the Playlists tab in RetailBox 6.1 or later.
Queue saved screen savers
With the Up Next queue, you can add screen savers to your queue with a tap and start enjoying immediately after. Edit, reorder and loop as you like.

Curated based on development

Seamlessly intuitive.

With a goal to be much simpler than the previous versions of RetailBox, while also bringing a lot more functionality, a careful intuitive balance needed to be struck.

RetailBox is built with delightful onboarding, illustrations throughout to guide journeys, and simple, easy to navigate screens. The result is an experience that abstracts away a lot of decision making, keeping the focus on your content.

Get up and running right away
Delightful onboarding helps you to quickly find your way around RetailBox, and provides helpful guidance as you move between tabs.
Gestures that make sense
Coupled with simple, intuitive screens, we use gestures sparingly and intentionally to provide deeper levels of action controls like download or loop.
Guided by humans
Friendly, human-made visuals help guide you throughout the product, showing demos of how to do things quickly, and providing greater context.
Switch playback devices instantly
With Instant Play in RetailBox 6.1, users you can easily and instantly switch playback to another device, even retaining your queue and current progress.

Get up and running right away
Delightful onboarding helps you to quickly find your way around RetailBox, and provides helpful guidance as you move between tabs.
Gestures that make sense
Coupled with simple, intuitive screens, we use gestures sparingly and intentionally to provide deeper levels of action controls like download or loop.
Guided by humans
Friendly, human-made visuals help guide you throughout the product, showing demos of how to do things quickly, and providing greater context.
Switch playback devices instantly
With Instant Play in RetailBox 6.1, users you can easily and instantly switch playback to another device, even retaining your queue and current progress.

Get up and running right away
Delightful onboarding helps you to quickly find your way around RetailBox, and provides helpful guidance as you move between tabs.
Gestures that make sense
Coupled with simple, intuitive screens, we use gestures sparingly and intentionally to provide deeper levels of action controls like download or loop.
Guided by humans
Friendly, human-made visuals help guide you throughout the product, showing demos of how to do things quickly, and providing greater context.
Switch playback devices instantly
With Instant Play in RetailBox 6.1, users you can easily and instantly switch playback to another device, even retaining your queue and current progress.

RetailBox+

One subscription to all the content you could ask for.

For users that want to see even more of the world, RetailBox+ opens the door to unlimited playback, exclusive original content and the immersive storytelling of narrated local guide content.

As your global pass to the world's best content, the subscription service unlocks new experiences for users while ensuring we can retain a one-time fee for the main product.

Instantly access the catalogue
With RetailBox+, the content you have access to sits right alongside everything else – so there's no gap between rich screen savers you've unlocked and your favourites.
Subscribe effortlessly
Designed to be effortless, you can get started with RetailBox+ from any exclusive content or narrated content with just a tap.
Narrated experiences
To drive the next generation of RetailBox, narrated experiences with beautiful illustrated visuals unlock local guide narration and rich soundscapes, taking you directly into the heart of the city, mountain or countryside, from anywhere.

Instantly access the catalogue
With RetailBox+, the content you have access to sits right alongside everything else – so there's no gap between rich screen savers you've unlocked and your favourites.
Subscribe effortlessly
Designed to be effortless, you can get started with RetailBox+ from any exclusive content or narrated content with just a tap.
Narrated experiences
To drive the next generation of RetailBox, narrated experiences with beautiful illustrated visuals unlock local guide narration and rich soundscapes, taking you directly into the heart of the city, mountain or countryside, from anywhere.

Instantly access the catalogue
With RetailBox+, the content you have access to sits right alongside everything else – so there's no gap between rich screen savers you've unlocked and your favourites.
Subscribe effortlessly
Designed to be effortless, you can get started with RetailBox+ from any exclusive content or narrated content with just a tap.
Narrated experiences
To drive the next generation of RetailBox, narrated experiences with beautiful illustrated visuals unlock local guide narration and rich soundscapes, taking you directly into the heart of the city, mountain or countryside, from anywhere.

RetailBox Design System

A whole new expression, inside and out.

With inside-out reinvention, the RetailBox design system is built to delight, highlighting and celebrating our rich, vibrant catalogue of content, while providing a robust, reliable interface that scales.

Designed to compliment the native experiences on iOS, the system borrows cues from the system while carving out a visual identity that feels modern and dependable.

Light, seamless visuals
With simple, consistent iconography throughout, options like Notifications, Appearance Controls, Instant Play devices and more are easy to customise and understand.
Simplicity at its essence
Crafted with distinct hierarchy, layering and depth, core actions and alerts appear elevated while others recede to allow attention on content.
Clear interactivity
Actions you can take are always visible, and clear, to ensure interactive elements remain easily tappable, so you can focus more on the content itself.
Robust, friendly empty states
Seeing empty states as the natural start of journeys, we crafted robust, friendly pointers to guide you on getting going, and not penalising unstarted actions.
Unity across appearances
Whether in light or dark mode, RetailBox is designed to maintain unity and simplicity across appearances.

Light, seamless visuals
With simple, consistent iconography throughout, options like Notifications, Appearance Controls, Instant Play devices and more are easy to customise and understand.
Simplicity at its essence
Crafted with distinct hierarchy, layering and depth, core actions and alerts appear elevated while others recede to allow attention on content.
Clear interactivity
Actions you can take are always visible, and clear, to ensure interactive elements remain easily tappable, so you can focus more on the content itself.
Robust, friendly empty states
Seeing empty states as the natural start of journeys, we crafted robust, friendly pointers to guide you on getting going, and not penalising unstarted actions.
Unity across appearances
Whether in light or dark mode, RetailBox is designed to maintain unity and simplicity across appearances.

Light, seamless visuals
With simple, consistent iconography throughout, options like Notifications, Appearance Controls, Instant Play devices and more are easy to customise and understand.
Simplicity at its essence
Crafted with distinct hierarchy, layering and depth, core actions and alerts appear elevated while others recede to allow attention on content.
Clear interactivity
Actions you can take are always visible, and clear, to ensure interactive elements remain easily tappable, so you can focus more on the content itself.
Robust, friendly empty states
Seeing empty states as the natural start of journeys, we crafted robust, friendly pointers to guide you on getting going, and not penalising unstarted actions.
Unity across appearances
Whether in light or dark mode, RetailBox is designed to maintain unity and simplicity across appearances.

Seasonal

Designed to celebrate the diversity of every season and culture.

A stress tested system designed for different localisations and cultures, we built RetailBox from the ground up to be dynamic in experience and communication.

Seasonal and cultural events and collections are at the core of the experience, celebrating the best places in the world and the photographers who help us to all experience them.

Bring in the Festive Season
Designed to bring in the holiday season, the RetailBox Festive icon and screen saver delighted users with a surprise release.
Proudly celebrating
RetailBox's deep commitment to celebrate and empower LGBTQIA+ communities meant we released several annual Pride icons and screen savers.
Artist spotlights
Focusing on empowering creators and photographers, special artist spotlight collections introduced users to new content, debuting first on RetailBox.
Curated weekly picks
Our editor-selected weekly picks are designed to help users find new content to enjoy and to highlight some of the best parts of the catalogue.

Bring in the Festive Season
Designed to bring in the holiday season, the RetailBox Festive icon and screen saver delighted users with a surprise release.
Proudly celebrating
RetailBox's deep commitment to celebrate and empower LGBTQIA+ communities meant we released several annual Pride icons and screen savers.
Artist spotlights
Focusing on empowering creators and photographers, special artist spotlight collections introduced users to new content, debuting first on RetailBox.
Curated weekly picks
Our editor-selected weekly picks are designed to help users find new content to enjoy and to highlight some of the best parts of the catalogue.

Bring in the Festive Season
Designed to bring in the holiday season, the RetailBox Festive icon and screen saver delighted users with a surprise release.
Proudly celebrating
RetailBox's deep commitment to celebrate and empower LGBTQIA+ communities meant we released several annual Pride icons and screen savers.
Artist spotlights
Focusing on empowering creators and photographers, special artist spotlight collections introduced users to new content, debuting first on RetailBox.
Curated weekly picks
Our editor-selected weekly picks are designed to help users find new content to enjoy and to highlight some of the best parts of the catalogue.

Thinking outside the Box

Impact by numbers.

2.2K active beta testers
Based on the total active beta and alpha testers for the lifecycle of the RetailBox 6.0 product, 6.1.
#29 in App Store lifestyle category
Based on the highest-reach period in the Apple App Store lifecycle category while the product was available for sale.
$0 upgrade cost for RetailBox 6
Based on the upgrade cost for buyers of the previous RetailBox version (5.4) and earlier versions. New users could purchase RetailBox 6 for $2.99 US.
2.3x faster app launches
Based on pre-release builds of RetailBox 6 vs the latest publicly available build (5.4.1) for app launch times from opening to immediate first content visibility.
50% faster video playback
Based on pre-release builds of RetailBox 6 vs the latest publicly available build (5.4.1) for time from video preview screen, to video playback.

2.2K active beta testers
Based on the total active beta and alpha testers for the lifecycle of the RetailBox 6.0 product, 6.1.
#29 in App Store lifestyle category
Based on the highest-reach period in the Apple App Store lifecycle category while the product was available for sale.
$0 upgrade cost for RetailBox 6
Based on the upgrade cost for buyers of the previous RetailBox version (5.4) and earlier versions. New users could purchase RetailBox 6 for $2.99 US.
2.3x faster app launches
Based on pre-release builds of RetailBox 6 vs the latest publicly available build (5.4.1) for app launch times from opening to immediate first content visibility.
50% faster video playback
Based on pre-release builds of RetailBox 6 vs the latest publicly available build (5.4.1) for time from video preview screen, to video playback.

2.2K active beta testers
Based on the total active beta and alpha testers for the lifecycle of the RetailBox 6.0 product, 6.1.
#29 in App Store lifestyle category
Based on the highest-reach period in the Apple App Store lifecycle category while the product was available for sale.
$0 upgrade cost for RetailBox 6
Based on the upgrade cost for buyers of the previous RetailBox version (5.4) and earlier versions. New users could purchase RetailBox 6 for $2.99 US.
2.3x faster app launches
Based on pre-release builds of RetailBox 6 vs the latest publicly available build (5.4.1) for app launch times from opening to immediate first content visibility.
50% faster video playback
Based on pre-release builds of RetailBox 6 vs the latest publicly available build (5.4.1) for time from video preview screen, to video playback.

Designed with love in London

All iconography, illustrations and visuals were hand crafted by Jackson.

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All testing information (including comparisons against production versions) is accurate as of the time of print, or the time of the studies undertaken. No liabilities are assumed for any mistakes, inaccuracies or factual errors made in the publishing of the case studies contained herein.