Project Overview

Project Duration: September 2022 - Current
Project Type: Create & Update Portfolio Website
Client: Sylvia Cerel-Suhl - Artist 

Problem Statement

Artist needed a way to display her diverse range of projects to the world in a neat and aesthetically appealing way. 

Objectives & Goals

• Design a responsive website that showcases Sylvia's documented projects to share with potential clients and submit for grant proposals. 

• Create an organization system for the different types of projects and a place for updates & news relating to Sylvia's current & upcoming projects. 

My Process
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​Explore

​​​First, I talked with the artist and explored her projects to get a sense of her artist identity. Then I conducted competitive research, looking at other artist portfolios to get a sense of the design landscape.

​Ideate

Next, I presented her the different options for website building platforms, and she chose the free version of Weebly. 
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Then, I discussed with the artist ideas for how we might organize and display her work. I presented to her different options as well as other artist portfolios to help her determine the vision that she wanted for her portfolio. 

​​Design​

​Next, I created the different pages of her website, organized & uploaded her different projects, and worked with the artist to create descriptions for each project. 

​Refine

​Finally, I presented the website to the artist. We went through the website project by project and she provided feedback on the look and feel of the website, but also the finer details of each project. 

As she shares more work, I add it to the site, meet with her for review, and re-publish. ​

Product Users

The primary target audience for this project is institutions that provide grants to artists
​such as nonprofits, museums, universities, and philanthropies.

Qualitative Research

I reviewed dozens of artist portfolios, noting pain points and key differences between sites. After reviewing these sites and discussing pain points and desires with the artist, we decided on the key features that should and should not be included in the site.

Observations

• Most portfolios have a large landing photo of their work
• Simple format with only a few pages
• Many contain a press/news page to keep customers & fans updated 
• Conversational language 

​User Needs 

1. A way to quickly see the range of the artist's projects
2. ​A shortcut to find out what artist is currently working on
3. An efficient and clear way to contact artist 

Features & Functionalities

to resolve user needs
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Work classified into categories and listed on homepage which links to category pages and project details. 

​A current events / news page to provide updates on what artist is working on & any press about her projects. 

​Contact page with contact info & contact form easily accessible.

Major Screens & Design Choices
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Home Screen

Home Screen Mobile Device

Portfolio Page - Community Art

Responsive Web Design allows for product to be easily accessible from any device.
 

Accessibility Considerations

To ensure users with any vision impairment are able to access the content, I checked the color contrast for key text. 

Using accessibility testing software, I checked the site against WCAG and ADA accessibility standards. 
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Outcomes, Key Takeaways & Next Steps
​

​Outcomes

​​Key Takeaways

• Artist has fully functional and responsive digital portfolio that she shares with clients and uses for grant proposals. 
• Projects are organized by category and sorted by most recent. 
• Artist site contains news & updates section so that users can explore how the artist is represented in the media and check out what she is currently working on. 
• Site contains contact me section so that interested users can get in touch with the artist. 

• Weebly has a lot of basic functionality, but the structure of the platform, comes with design challenges, such as limited customization and poor mobile optimization. 
• I gained a deeper understanding of how artist's create community-centered projects, obtain grants for new projects, and the online artist portfolio landscape. 
• Given financial constraints, I developed my ability to manage expectations for what was possible with the basic version of Weebly, communicate progress, and address feedback creatively. 
• It would have been beneficial to start the portfolio with high-resolution photos of the projects.

​Next Steps

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Continue to add projects to portfolio as artist creates and documents them. 

Improve quality of portfolio through replacing low-quality images with high-resolution professional photos of artwork. 

​Fix current accessibility issues to make the site entirely WCAG compliant. 

Conduct usability and accessibility testing to determine user pain points and refine the design. ​

Thank you for exploring this project!

​Check out my other projects.