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Creating the social media app for artists.
FolioStack is an app designed for artists and creatives looking to buy, sell, and discover artwork in the familiarity of a social media environment.
Through personal experience, discussions with fellow artists, and research, it became clear there was not a comprehensive digital networking solution available for artists that could address 2 key issues many artists face:
Networking for the average artist is difficult, and finding a gallery that will show/sell your work can be even harder through the traditional cold-calling process.
Platforms like Instagram and Facebook are not ideal for artists to discover or sell work due to the millions of users and variety of content that one must sift through in order to find impactful work or connections.
Since FolioStack is a personal project, the challenge of creating this app would be researching, concepting, wireframing and prototyping the entire app by myself. Not only that, the work would have to be done on evenings and weekends as I was already working full-time as a digital designer for another business.
Even more challenging would be reminding myself to be constantly thinking of my target audience and potential users through the entire design process. When you work on a project alone, it can be easy to fall into making decisions based on what you want, not what is best for the user. Objectivity and adaptive thinking would be key.
Before design began, research was conducted on what options are currently available for artists looking to showcase and sell their work online, along with what opportunities gallery owners and curators have to discover new talent. Five different websites were analyzed and compared on ease of portfolio generation, presence of a buy/sell marketplace, and sense of community. These businesses are: Behance, Dribbble, Patreon, and NewBloodArt.
Behance is Adobe’s flagship portfolio application that comes free with a Creative Cloud subscription. The app mainly showcases work created with Adobe programs, although it does have categories for fine arts (drawing, painting). As of 2020, Behance has 12 million users, and is the largest creative portfolio service by user count. The main feature of Behance is a discovery page where users can view work from other users across a multitude of creative categories. The variety, quantity, and inspirational nature of Behance’s portfolios are its largest draw. Behance also offers job postings, educational videos, and links to Adobe’s live events. The app does not contain a marketplace to sell work, nor does it showcase local events.
Dribbble is a portfolio site and app that is built for designers to showcase their work, gain exposure, and connect to employment opportunities. Instead of projects being a deep-dive into the creative process, they are displayed as “shots” - a high-level snapshot of the project. Dribbble’s focus is less about inspiration and more about designer recognition and promotion. There is the opportunity to be promoted as a “pro” where one will have more chance of landing jobs and contracts from clients. While being a great platform for designers, Dribbble does not represent fine artists, galleries or curators.
Patreon is a creative subscription service that allows fans and followers to pay creatives directly to access content. It is not a portfolio site, but a platform between creator and user that manages memberships and payments, as well as user interaction through polls, sneak peeks, limited releases, and other features. Patreon’s primary objective is to build a prosperous fan base for creators, and to get the artist paid. Visual artists are well-represented on Patreon, creating tutorials, critiques, and art exclusive for their subscribed followers.
NewBloodArt is a website that represents emerging artists through selling artwork online to prospective collectors. It specifically represents artists in the UK, many of which are recent art school graduates. The website prides itself on hand picking up-and-coming talent that will provide great return on investment for collectors as the artist’s career grows. The website offers a small profile page for each artist, along with the specific artworks for sale.
In order to get a snapshot of what FolioStack’s user base could be, user personas were generated.
I’ve always enjoyed painting, I even took some classes in university, but never thought I could make a career out of it. Now that I have more time on my hands, I’d like to get back into it.
John is a general contractor by trade, living and working in Toronto. He is a creative individual who paints in his free time, but wishes he could do more with his art.
His wife has encouraged him to get his work shown in a gallery, but he does not know how to go about starting the process. John is charismatic and passionate about his art, but is exhausted by the thought of cold-calling galleries.
Age: 36
Occupation: Rennovation contractor
Marital status: Married
Location: Toronto, ON
Education: Bachelor of Arts
Personal development
Fear of a missed opportunity
Peer recognition
Family recognition
Potential for a career change
Start networking with other artists and engage with the local art community
Be part of a group show
Gain gallery representation
Sell work regularly
Feels the art world is 'cliquey' and difficult to get in to
Feels it has been too long since he had any connections to the art world, and that he may have missed his opportunity
Introverted, analytical thinker, cautious, expresses himself creatively
I believe more diverse representation in the art world is very important right now, and I’d like to transition my own gallery to reflect a variety of artists from different cultural backgrounds.
Gabrielle is the owner of a small art gallery in Montreal that represents 15 artists and hosts regular solo and group shows. She is looking for new talent to show in her gallery, and specifically wants to transition to more diverse ethnic representation.
She has thought about searching online portfolio sites for new talent, but often finds the quality of work hit-or-miss, and is reluctant to search social media.
Age: 47
Occupation: Gallery Owner
Marital status: Married, 2 children
Location: Montreal, QC
Education: Master of Fine Arts
Community impact
Academic development
Peer recognition
Business growth
Advocacy
Make contact with new artists that are looking for representation
Prepare a group show of new talent
Transition gallery representation to be more diverse
Online portfolio sites require a lot of "sifting" to find good work, plus they feel impersonal
Artists she meets at gallery events are mostly white and not diverse
Extroverted, articulate, curious, insightful
App concepting began by putting pen to paper. Rough thumbnails were drawn out to get a sense of the main pillars the app needed to contain, such as a gallery/portfolio, an event search, a marketplace and messaging features. During this initial stage the name of the app was also brainstormed, and quick sketches were made of potential word marks/logos.
Once the basic pages and requirements of the app were brainstormed, user flows were drawn up to show the various navigation paths and screens the user would navigate. A fair amount of time was spent in this stage figuring out the logic of the app.
Once the basic pages and requirements of the app were brainstormed, user flows were drawn up to show the various navigation paths and screens the user would navigate. A fair amount of time was spent in this stage figuring out the logic of the app.
Low-fidelity wireframes were prepared using the Wireframer plugin in Adobe Xd. This allowed for quick app screen concepting and the ability to place key elements (buttons, image & text blocks) where they were needed. Time was spent during this phase sorting out the placement and organization of menus, entry fields, buttons, and content blocks.
The FolioStack logo and wordmark are designed to work together as a lockup or used separately. The logo was designed to be clean and simple for scalability. The font Montserrat Bold was chosen for the wordmark as it is clean, easy to read, and represents a modern digital product.
The name “FolioStack” and the design of the logo come from quite literal interpretations of the what the app has to offer. Combining the words “portfolio” and “stack” led me to the name. The logo has been designed to show a stack of books or “folios” re-arranged into an “F” shape - illustrated by the gif above.
Converting wireframes into high-fidelity mockups, complete with animated transitions between screens to create an accurate app prototype, was by-far the most time-consuming process. Around 150 screens had to be mocked up to properly display all the features of the app, including sign-in/registration, profile generation, browse/search, messaging, and shopping cart flow. Many changes from the initial wireframes occurred along the way, such as eliminating a lengthy app tutorial, and moving some features to other screens that made more sense. Moving through the app while thinking of myself as a first time user gave me the foresight to place features where people would expect them to be.
Above from left to right: the create account screen, the feed screen, and the search screen with an active “event” filter.
Above from left to right: the create account screen, the feed screen, and the search screen with an active “event” filter.
Three video tutorials were recorded to help navigate users through the features of the app. These videos encompassed registration & profile generation, logging in & posting a project, as well as using the marketplace to purchase artwork.
It took many recording sessions to get the audio and navigation paths spot-on so they could be easily understood and followed. I also specifically included situations where the user might encounter an error in order to showcase how the app could help them solve the problem.
This project was a lot of work. Between the initial brainstorming in February 2020 to recording the last app tutorial video in September, hundreds of hours were invested in properly structuring and organizing the app, redesigning screens and flows, and making small changes throughout as necessary. With each problem that was solved, it seemed like another area needed improvement. For example, when I was nearing the end of the prototyping stage, I realized I was relying heavily on pop-up messages to convey information the to user, when this convention was already being phased out of current app design. I had the option to go back and redesign my whole app flow to utilize trays instead of pop-ups, but this would add another month of design work, which I did not have time for. I had to make the decision to move forward as-is, and keep in-mind this change for a future project. In doing so I learned to cut out what was unnecessary and prioritize what was most important: the sign-in/registration, portfolio generation, and online marketplace experience of the app.
Overall, I learned that designing an app is not a linear process. The scope and complexity of the project is always subject to change as new issues and requirements surface. Remaining adaptive to these changes, while keeping the needs of your users in mind is imperative to creating a successful product.
© 2023 Tom Seymour, all rights reserved.
