Unique Board is an online platform that connects multidisciplinary artists to collaborate and bring their ideas to life with a crowdfunding model to support their creative projects. It has supported over 60 projects with over 850 artists and has held 6 local events in NYC to support the artist community.
As the lead designer on the team, I worked closely with the founder to redesign the entire product that aligns with the new direction and vision. My role involved product direction, product management, wireframing concepts, UX, visual design, and prototyping. The objective of the 2-month project was to build a 2.0 version of the platform to present to investors.
Unique Board connects multidisciplinary artists to collaborate on a project. Any artists looking for collaborators can share their project vision. It's like a job board but for finding collaborators for creative projects.
Artists or project leaders can run a crowdfunding campaign to financially support their projects while building and engaging with their audiences.
Artists can find and connect with both artististic and non-artististic collaborators like mechanical engineers, lighting technicians, software developers, etc to bring their ideas to life. Anyone who wishes to be a part of the project could apply.
Artists and collaborators can showcase their artistic visions as immersive storytelling experiences through "Project Story".
Artists could create projects, list collaborator openings, and engage with their audience through posting on the project page. The goal of designing their profiles is to allow them to express their artistic vision and their ongoing project, more than showcasing their portfolio pieces. Since the artists are selected through an exclusive application process, with a total of 5-10 artists per season, the visual design emphasized on the premium look of the profile that differentiates them from other users.
Aside from artists, who are selected through an exclusive application process, users include anyone who has created an account on UB. They could back (fund) projects and apply to become a collaborator of a project. The user profile aims to show a snapshot of the user in a meaningful way that shows their activity and contributions on the site. The view state varies depending on who is viewing the profile.
Since only about 5-10 projects would be displayed on the Project Discovery page, the goal of this page was to design an immersive and visual browsing experience. It highlights a visual representation of the project with the project name and project leader (artist). On hover, there is a brief overview of the project including: # of backers, goal/funding progress bar, pledge amount, and # of days left until the project funding ends.
The main goal of this page was to raise funds to support the projects. In order to raise funds, we learned that it’s important for the artists and collaborators to communicate with their supporters. With this in mind, we built a timeline on the left rail, which enables artists and collaborators to engage with their audience by posting updates about the project. Users can comment and like the post for further engagement.
The primary action is to back the project, which leads to a page with a list of all the possible rewards for funding the project. By adding the reward to cart, users could fund the project by purchasing multiple rewards at once. Users could also see collaborator openings for the project directly from this page. Clicking on “See openings” leads to the Collaboration Openings page (see below), filtered by the project name.
This is where anyone who is interested in being part of a creative project could apply and become a collaborator. Users can search and filter by their focus, location, start date, and projects. Clicking on a role leads to a detailed description page, where users could simply apply by writing a short message and attaching their portfolio/resume.
As a crowdfunding model, UB allows users to support the project by pledging more than the base amount. It was essential to be transparent about the risk of not receiving the item if the project goal hasn’t reached. The page highlights a brief description about the artist who created the reward in order to increase the chance of selling the reward for the highest value.
The Dashboard is a project management system that lets artists can manage, edit, and track their projects and collaborator applications.
In addition to the Dashboard, Project Assistant helps project members to run a successful, crowdfunded project, the social media manager of UB recommends tips to grow and engage with their audience through a CMS system. Every Project Assistant cards have a CTA to perform actions faster, and project members can have a discussion by commenting on the card.
Aside from artists, who are selected through an exclusive application process, users include anyone who has created an account on UB. They could back (fund) projects and apply to become a collaborator of a project. The user profile aims to show a snapshot of the user in a meaningful way that shows their activity and contributions on the site. The view state varies depending on who is viewing the profile.
