Lonely Walls: Fine art marketplace and artist networking app
Lonely Walls is a Seattle-based startup that came up with a mobile app idea to help local artists find venues to exhibit their art.
About the project
Every wall has a story to tell
The idea of an art platform that would directly connect artists with collectors and business owners came to Charles Doyon after years in the photography and tech industry. Lonely Walls became a bold project that touched upon a business model few did.
Mission
Lonely Walls believes art should be for everyone and that artists deserve to make a living wage from their creations. With that in mind, Lonely Walls has a mission to completely disrupt the art market and flip it on its head. Any public space becomes an art venue.
Design philosophy
A business tool designed for art and artists
For many years creatives were forced to use general instruments to conduct business. They wouldn’t cater to the needs of the artistic community, which are different from other industries. Lonely Walls art marketplace puts artists in front. Everything they do empowers creators to make better-informed decisions and highlight their creative potential.
- Dark theme
- Wall textures
- Modular patterns
- High compatibility with any artwork
- Robust app functionality
- Proprietary matching algorithm
Identity system
As a branding agency, we take inspiration from a limitless world of art. Our perception of it is just a snapshot of the current vision, mood, and ability to interpret information. When working on branding, we wanted to capture this fleeting moment of transience when you take in an artwork, feel its vibrance, and find yourself wanting to purchase it.
Research
The cubic concept was inspired by sheer name of Lonely Walls and spoke of rooms, shadows, lights, and frames. It naturally flowed into the realm of geometric abstract art and its derivatives.
Branding
In search for more depth and dimension, we also explored the subject of 3D shapes, intersection and interaction between various geometric forms.
Color and typography
This is where the artistic side of the Lonely Walls technology shines. Since the overall theme was primarily dark, we went with burning gradients and bright colors for the accents.
The font choice in the form of a purposeful combination of serif and sans serif stems from the idea to create a balance between artsy/exquisite and tech/functional.
App design
The impressive visual identity put an extra layer of responsibility on the application design. It had to do the branding justice, be industry-appropriate, and maintain the functionality of a high-tech product
App design
The UX design work took a significant portion of the project timeline because of the complexity of the mechanics for three categories of users and the amount of interaction between them. The name “wireframes” does not do these screens justice, as they provide more than just an outline of the features – it’s a full-blown design prototype with just the visuals turned off for this stage.
Aesthetic
The brand identity concept with rich visuals gave the app design team a lot of room for creativity. The colors aligned nicely with the dark theme through the off-black background color and its shades.
Browsing experience
Lonely Walls caters to three types of users: artists, collectors, and business owners. The main challenge was to build a consistent way of their mutual discovery and interaction. Geospatial relationships allow for the best visualization – local map. We have refined the experience of the major map apps and tailored it to the needs of our app.
Mediated interaction
One of the goals of the app was to build trust from users. Something you can’t guarantee just by having the two parties exchange contacts and get after it in the DMs. We’ve built a way for the artists and business owners to set up exhibitions in a safe and controlled way, by formalizing the details and keeping track of changes.
Artwork details
Since the main attraction of the app is art, it made perfect sense, to use it as the central content of the app. This gave us a lot of social feature concepts and made the app much more valuable.
Use-case scenarios
Here’s the experience in a nutshell. An artist uploads their art to the app which signifies their desire to exhibit but not only in galleries, but other places like restaurants, coffee shops, and stores too. A business owner or a venue manager discovers the artworks they love to have in their interior and contact the artist directly through the LW app. They set up an exhibition, market it and but the artworks on the walls with the ability for visitors to purchase them through us. A collector can discover artists in their specific locations, and buy artworks on the spot. This brings foot traffic to the businesses, increases artist engagement, and allows collectors to discover new and genuine artists.
Website
Continuing to develop the general stylistic approach, we made sure that the Lonely Walls message got spread across the web too. We incorporated the concept of artwork mosaic into the header of the website.
Home page collage
The feed experience in the app involves constant discovery of different art pieces, perpetual change of images, and dynamic browsing. Since the website does not feature real-time content, we came up with an idea to emulate the feed via a collage of the artworks from our LW artists.
Outcome
Lonely Walls founders came to us with a beautiful idea and just a set of sketches but left with a solid brand vision and a strong digital presence. Hundreds of shows and local exhibitions were organized within the app making the founders’ dream of empowering artists a reality.
Customer Testimonial
Other vendors said this project would be too difficult but Shakuro was able to pull it off.Charles DoyonCEO, Lonely Walls
