Head of Design, and the only hands-on designer. I worked with the founders on strategy and product vision, and designed the product UX and design system end to end.

Product manager, engineering, a community specialist and the founders.

6 months, shipped iteratively.

Outlasted the market collapse as a top-tier art platform, leaving the business a more robust product foundation to build on, based on curation and artist calibre.

A bet on art, in a bear market. Prices were falling and other NFT platforms were shutting down.

• ~70% of artists had stopped publishing regularly.
• Top artists saw selling cheaply as damage to their reputation, status and average sale price.
• But OG artists, collectors and the core community were still here, and still spending.
• And they were still eager to speculate on new works and invest in blue-chip pieces.

The product didn’t help. It felt like a busy marketplace, where great art got lost. The data showed our focus should be on high-spending collectors, so we repositioned the business and product UX to attract the most exciting artists in the space: fewer PFP collections, more artists with depth and substance. We overhauled the whole product to feel less like a marketplace and more like a high-end gallery.

• Keeping the team aligned as we designed for a new audience.
• Crypto, Web3 and contract types constantly shifting.
• Start-up pace, with pressure to ship quickly.