ONLINE GALLERY AND E-COMMERCE STORE FOR A FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY BRAND

Website Design

OVERVIEW

Mendelson Fine Art Photography aimed to transcend physical gallery limitations by creating an immersive digital platform reflecting the elegance of its coastal and urban artwork. This venture sought to redefine the brand's digital footprint, transforming an ordinary e-commerce platform into a captivating online gallery. Peter's renowned fine art photography, showcased in prestigious galleries and private collections, spans art, design, travel, and style publications.

PROJECT

UX/UI Design

DURATION

Sep-Dec 2023

ROLE

UX Designer

TOOLS

Figma, Squarespace

The Beginning

CHALLENGE

Expanding reach through a digital gallery

The objective was to expand Mendelson’s reach by designing a visually striking, user-friendly website that showcased fine art collections while offering tailored user experiences, enabling effortless browsing and purchasing.

Bridging art and audience in a digital space

Mendelson Fine Art Photography needed a digital space that mirrored the elegance of its physical galleries while offering an easy-to-navigate interface for buyers, designers, and galleries to discover and purchase artwork effortlessly.

GOAL

Research / Empathize

USER RESEARCH

Tailoring the experience for art enthusiasts

Leveraging social media insights, demographic segmentation was instrumental in deciphering user behavior. This delved into not only age and gender but also psychographics, understanding desires, preferences, and behaviors. The aim was to create an intuitive interface that swiftly showcased artwork while encouraging deeper engagement. Based on social media data, I divided the company’s target demographic into its main user bases:

Women ages 30-50
Gallery owners and designers

I then delved into what these users would need out of the website. The website had to be simple enough that users would get a sense of the artwork within a few seconds, but developed enough that they could form a connection with the artist and collections.

USER NEEDS

Samantha needs a user-friendly website with clear categories and tools to help her find and visualize artwork, plus guidance for decision-making.

User persona Samantha and her user journey map illuminate critical insights for our website design. Understanding her need to explore suitable artwork due to limited interior decoration experience, the website should offer intuitive navigation, clear categorization of coastal imagery, and visualization tools like room mock-ups (which we included under “On the Wall”). Samantha's goals of finding suitable art amid feelings of excitement and uncertainty highlight opportunities to provide guidance through blog content or advice sections, ensuring an engaging and supportive user experience.

Guidance through content

Intuitive navigation

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

Visualization tools

Analyzing competitors to shape e-commerce strategy

The in-depth competitive analysis encompassing five high-end fine art photographers provided a comprehensive view of the market landscape. Examining their visual language, including color palettes, image composition, and brand aesthetics, allowed for a detailed comparison. Additionally, scrutinizing their product pages, information presentation, pricing strategies, and checkout processes revealed diverse approaches within the industry. I worked with MFAP to analyze these approaches and decide on what would work best for his client base. The competitive analysis was especially helpful in the e-commerce realm as MFAP was deciding on materials to offer, ways in which to filter/categorize the work on the website, and whether or not to make the products available for purchase directly on the store.

Ideate

Scope and constraints

The client’s need for website edit-ability steered us towards using Squarespace as a platform. This choice strategically balanced user-friendly interfaces with many customization possibilities, enabling seamless content management while preserving the website’s design integrity.

Design ideation

How can the website effectively showcase the unique aesthetics of Mendelson's coastal artwork to captivate potential buyers?

What features or design elements should be incorporated to ensure a seamless and engaging browsing experience for users across different devices?

How might the website cater to the specific needs and preferences of both designers seeking artwork for clients and individual buyers looking to decorate their homes?

How should the SEO strategy be tailored to ensure high visibility and attract the target demographic of art enthusiasts, galleries, and homeowners?

SKETCHES

Initial concepts

These sketches were developed with a focus on the Squarespace platform, ensuring mobile-friendly and responsive designs. We utilized the SquareKicker plugin to improve the site's visual appeal, incorporating features like parallax scrolling and hover effects. These sketches served as the foundation for our wireframes.

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

Navigating the gallery

Following our competitive analysis and review of the existing website, we chose to retain most of the information architecture, ensuring it included essential pages for both gallery owners and buyers. I collaborated with the photographer to reorganize the galleries, ensuring that each image was placed within a curated gallery that best showcased its context.

WIREFRAMES

Building the design digitally

Building on our ideation phase and the identified user challenges, I developed wireframes for the potential page layouts. We ensured consistency in the use of MFAP's signature orange as an accent color across all pages. Additionally, we designed the layouts to allocate at least 50% of the page space to imagery, creating an immersive experience that mimics browsing through a physical gallery.

Prototype

The blog page contains tons of behind-the-scenes content, including the history behind certain images and places, all of which is great for SEO purposes.

For designers and homeowners, shop by color and shop by location is the perfect way to find the exact photograph to fit in your space. This section can be seen on the home page.

The "On the Wall" page allows users to visualize the art in all different spaces. It also gives them the option to send in a photo of their room and see options of artwork to put in their own space.

The FAQ page features all common questions related to purchasing artwork and the materials. There are also images so buyers can see the difference between the acrylic and aluminum prints.

Crafting a playful visual identity

Blending the vibrant coastal imagery with the brand's elegant aura was an intriguing challenge. Leveraging the existing logo and orange color scheme, I strived to strike a balance between sophistication and liveliness. This visual approach seamlessly intertwined the brand's refined identity with the artwork's bright colors, creating a fusion of sophistication and playfulness. The focus was on enhancing the brand's elements, adding allure while ensuring an intuitive interface for diverse users, crafting a visual language that spoke both chic elegance and lively charm.

Type: Proxima Nova, Franklin Gothic URW

COLORS:

Final takeaways

The website was successfully launched in December of 2023 and received great feedback from users. We will continue to monitor the website analytics as I collaborate with MFAP on their marketing strategy.