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portfolio » ART & BRUT Gallery

Project objectives

ART & BRUT was developing into a major project. The old site made on Wix was uncomfortable and hard to customize. It was necessary to create a modern and functional solution where users could easily pick up a piece of art that would fit perfectly into their interiors.

2015-2021

Customer

The ART & BRUT project is a contemporary art gallery featuring the work of over 100 artists. The best decorators and interior designers collaborate with the gallery, finding here unique pieces for exceptional interiors.

Tools

XMind

Photoshop

Adobe Illustrator

Balsamiq

Analytics

The existing site was made on Wix and had the minimum necessary functionality. We analyzed its strengths and weaknesses to understand what we had to work on and what needed to be preserved in the redesign. It was decided to keep the design minimalism and improve the possibilities of search and selection of works.

What were the issues with the old version the site:

Outdated design. The site looked unattractive, and for a contemporary art gallery this is a very important factor.

The site was not adapted for mobile devices. The most common scenario is when users enter through social networks (Facebook, Instagram or learn about the gallery's site at various exhibitions and events. Therefore, excellent performance of the site on mobile devices has become a priority.

It was hard to find authors and works. There was no on-site search by authors, names of works. There were no filters to find works by color, size and cost.

During the first stage we analyzed our competitors, defined our users and their needs, drew a functional map of the future site. You can read more about the progress of the work in our blog.

Development of prototypes

After specifying the functional of the site we started to prepare prototypes. We started with sketches, and those approved by the client were transferred from paper to Balsamiq. They helped us visualize how the site would work, clarify and agree on details, and later they became the basis of the assignment for the designer.

We did not make prototypes separately for the different versions of the devices. It was enough to take the card structure and describe the behavior of individual elements (menu, job card, author card, footer.

Design and development

The works in the gallery are colorful so the design of the site should be laconic and not distract the users. Minimalistic corporate style of the gallery aligned perfectly with the chosen concept. As a result the site turned out to be easy and clear to navigate.

A laconic work card contains all the necessary information and does not distract users

Filters make it easy to find the necessary work in each of the sections, and the function of adding to favorites allows the users to save their favorite works

The site is adapted for mobile devices

Added a special feature to make it easier to imagine how an item would match the indoor environment.

In the catalogue of authors it is easy to find the right one and immediately get an idea of the direction of their art and their works represented in the gallery. And tags show you which of the works appeared recently, and which are popular.

Gallery site is constantly developing. We've added new filters, sections and features, the administrator's functionality is greatly extended. And recently we added a news section with information about current events and new artists