Next Bus Ireland

November 2025 - January 2026 | Graphic Designer

Category | Rebrand, Digital Illustration, Branding
Industry | Tech, Transportation
Personality | Functional, Clean, Irish

Bus w separate wheel component and TFI off

overview

What it's all about

Next Bus is an app that tracks the live status and location of buses in Ireland. Originally built only for Dublin, the app developer Stephen McBride has steadily been expanding throughout Ireland.

how we did it

Stephen came to me in late 2025 wanting help with a rebrand as well as an overhaul of the digital art featuring on the loading screens of the various pages. He had originally sourced art just for Dublin, but needed more generic Irish imagery as well for his expansion. We worked together on a colour palette, fonts, and I spent the bulk of my time on digital art for loading pages as well as the icon.

MoodBoards, Fonts, Colours

The original app was fairly straightforward, with the Dublin blue and yellow featured as the main colours. The ask was to make the colour palette more green to reflect the Irish bus livery, and to take the app away from its Dublin focus. I presented inspiration, as well as suggestions of direction and colour, and we worked together to hone in on the look and feel that Stephen was targeting.

Digital Art

The main focus of this project was digital art for the logo and loading pages with everything digitally hand-drawn by myself. Discussions were had regarding the logo (crucially important especially in the app store environment).

Loading Page Art

Beyond the logo, I digitally hand drew loading screens for the Dublin routes as well as a second background for non-Dublin routes. The design was built with the landscape width in mind, allowing us to create quite comprehensive and complex images. Portrait view is the most commonly used of course, so we ensured that contained the most recognizable aspects.

In Use

Stephen has since applied the new branding including colours, fonts, and logo update - as well as the digital art to loading screens. It's actively being used in and around Dublin with further expansion planned. Next steps would be specific loading screens for specific cities - Cork, Limerick, Galway, amongst others.

process

Below I've included some closeups of the various aspect of the drawings. The Dublin art ended up being a bit more architectural while we leaned into more realism for the general Irish art.

get in touch

barbarasangster.design@gmail.com