Want to view the final deliverables is more detail? Look no further!
Project Overview
The Details.
3rd and final Interactive Media Studio
4 team member, all TAMU Seniors
Virtual Classroom Setting
15 week timeline
The Skills Gained.
Scheduling flexibility and fast turnaround
Team management and task delegation for different personalities and work styles
Web workflow as a creative working with a web developer, start to finish with Figma wire framing and prototyping
Ability to refine and weed out excess (branding, presentations, copy editing, etc).
Trust in my own experiences and opinions to make the tough calls, whether team, task, or aesthetic based.
1. Brainstorming
Each individual in our studio developed and presented a pitch for a project. While an artist-centered, community and improvement-minded social media was not my idea, I could gladly get behind such a project. There were also so many aggravations with social media that I saw in the creative community around me, so ideas and what-ifs came easily to the forefront of the brain after my friend Louis’ original pitch. I also wanted to see the website building process through to the end, with an actual live site as a deliverable. Most studio projects in the specialization seemed to end with a well-fleshed out prototype; a live site created with a team would be a new challenge and this project seemed the way to flex the designing muscles in this new way.
Louis, the original idea pitcher, had Tyler join the team, having come respectively from the game design and animation specializations studios in the past. Alyssa and myself had also joined, with our experience of our prior two studios in interactive media under our belt. I knew it would be both refreshing and worrisome to have half of the team entirely less experienced with the workflow of such a project, but as we were all seniors I knew we would push through (we could see the light at the end of the tunnel!)
2. Research
Even though we considered ourselves part of the key demographic for the social media that developed to be stylized as “Artsposé” (art + exposé), we wanted to reach a little further with our data before we jumped into design.
Key Discoveries
People were frustrated that they didn’t get to see the creative process of other creatives
College-aged and younger creatives of all kinds (fine artists, digital artists, photographers, graphic designers, 3d animators, etc) were hesitant to call themselves artists. They also think their own process work is “ugly” or “not worth sharing”
User agreements for most mainstream social medias have you relinquish a lot of creative rights over anything you post, whether you are fully aware of their use of your creations or not. You aren’t entitled to a single cent or any credit.
Users are sick of numerical feedback and binary interactions (ie: likes). They crave a community and worthwhile feedback that runs the gamut of emotions and reactions.
3. Project Goals
With this research in mind, we took a step forward and switched lanes a bit on details the original pitch as we iterated. We established a mission statement, a user interaction journey, deliverables, and team roles, which (of course) evolved as we worked. Here’s what we landed on.
Deliverables
Branding and style guide
Working prototype
- Populated community update “feed” page (landing page)
- 4 profiles, modeled after team members
- About page- Search Page
Live website adaptation of prototype
User Interaction
We set out to develop the site in a way that it would be a daily occurrence to visit the domain and check out what was going on in the community. However, we did not want the site to become a time-suck or an addictive feedback loop. You would hop on, engage with your fellow creatives, learn a little something new, and then close the site. We wanted to encourage grows and teachable moments, while also striving for versatility and personalization in the user experience.
Artsposé Mission Statement
Artsposé is a web-based social media application for artists–both old and new–built on transparency, both in process from start to finish and in your creative rights as you post and share your work.
Team Roles
Amelie Hebert (me!)- project manager, wire framing and prototyping lead, art direction (type logo, colors, fonts), style guide creation and compilation
Louis Whitworth - Main idea man, creative direction, web development, video compilation
Alyssa Bailey - Research and motion graphics
Tyler Hagenbach - Art assets (iconography and branding), presentation prep, and video compilation
< In general, there was a lot of screen sharing on Zoom. Global pandemic certainly make for some interesting skill building….
4. Developement
My Tasks
type-based logo
branding guide (layout, compilation, colors, typography)
wire framing iterations
full populated prototype
project management and timeline creation/upkeep
Teamwork Tasks
presentations (slide deck compilation, day-of speaking, voiceovers and recording)
wire frame, logo, and mascot early sketches
web testing and web development, cohesive art direction
user interaction, user journey, and feedback cycle