HodoMoto Mobile App

There are various applications on the market today that are dedicated to providing better travel experiences, yet if we analyse closely the needs of the target audience, it can be concluded that a motorbiker could use a little more help. In other words, there are some shortcomings generated by the already existing apps that need to be solved. The present project aims to meet the most frequent needs of a biker by designing a handy mobile application that provides innovative features meant to improve their travel experience. Because a trip, especially a long-distance one, along roads one has never driven on before, can be less stressful if one is well organised and informed before hitting the road. And this is exactly the main purpose of HodoMoto — to allow bikers to ride carefree. That is to say, offer them the possibility to efficiently plan trips in advance and provide a system that helps to deal with less pleasant situations while forgetting about pointless distractions.

The naming’s concept is based on, so to speak, the relationship between the biker and the road. Because when travelling on a motorbike across a road, a sort of bond is created. A motorway-type road offers a sense of freedom and detachment that is not gained by driving in urban areas. As well as long-distance journeys are enjoyed in a different, special way compared to daily commutes that are made for the simple purpose of arriving at a particular location, such as at work. This is where the prefix hodo- comes in. Borrowed from the ancient Greek language, it is used to refer to something related to the road, the path or the travel (“Hodo”, n.d.). Hence we have words like hodophile, which stands for someone who loves to travel (“Hodophile”, n.d.). Or words such as hodology which is the study of pathways, but in the neuroscience context (“Hodology”, n.d.). However, this time, the prefix hodo- will accompany the motorbike, as the road always accompanies the motorbike and vice versa.

The same concept reflected in the naming is once again evoked, but this time also visually. In this sense, the logo alludes to the connection between the road and the motorbike. The word hodo is graphically empowered by the arrow, which indicates the way as it were a path — a path that, as mentioned previously, will always accompany the motorbike wherever it rides.

The colour palette consists of two main colours and a secondary one. Smooth Asphalt, as the name suggests, is the colour of the fresh, clean and flawless asphalt, along which the whole magic takes place. Tireless Spirit is a vibrant, joyful and dynamic yellow tone that energizes the viewer. And Brave Voyage, besides the fact that is associated with bravery and luxury — which evokes to users a certain feeling of both confidence and exclusivity, complements the yellow colour.

HodoMoto is first and foremost a GPS and traffic application. However, apart from that, the app’s system will be specially and carefully designed having motorcyclists in mind. From this point onwards, what has been done is to think about their needs when travelling across Europe, especially over long distances, and to try to come up with a solution to the possible shortcomings. In this sense, after having gathered enough information to understand what the other biker-focused apps on the market do, the following decisions have been made: this unique mobile application will not only compile most of the features available within various apps previously studied, but it will also have a much more efficient and intuitive interface and will provide new features that are intended to improve the bikers’ experience as much as possible. It is an app that focuses on entertainment but whose new system to be proposed will foremost aim to simply make journeys easier and free of worries or pointless distractions.

In order to promote the new application, various media will be taken into account. First of all, an exhibition stand will be set up at places such as motorbike fairs, meetups or festivals. This stand will behave as an information point, where people could learn everything about the app and its use. The final render has been created in Magical Voxel, although it is not a 100% realistic representation of what the actual exhibition stand would look like in real life. It is a space locally delimited by yellow satin-finish plastic rectangular structures whose ends convert into the leitmotif of the app’s visual identity, i.e. into arrows, thus creating a kind of arch at the entrance. Within the space, there are several informative panels that will include information about the app, such as how to use it, what it offers and what the brand values are. Also, the space is decorated with sculptures of silhouettes of different types of motorbikes.

Secondly, a street campaign will be carried out, using resources such as posters, street and wall painting and signage. The message of this street campaign is that it is always a good idea to use HodoMoto wherever you go because with this app any ride becomes a carefree one. The app will always provide you with the best route and will take away your worries. So, to represent this concept it will be used a sort of wayfinding system that will not indicate a specific direction but will tell you that whatever route you choose, with HodoMoto you don’t have to worry about anything. In this sense, a series of posters have been proposed that include several slogan-like messages each visually leading to a representative photo.