Asocha
Responsive e-commerce site for fine art prints.
The Dream
To me, art boils down to meaning-making. It’s the perceptions and narratives that tell us the story of who we are and where we’re going. It’s the engine of change. Yet for something so profoundly implicated in the story of us, I looked around and largely felt let down by large commercial print shops. The big guys felt antiseptic & commercial, like they had lost the pulse beneath it all—the humanity spilling out of the frames.
That’s when I decided I wanted to create something different. I wanted to build something that didn’t lose sight of the humanity, that supported the long-standing, deep relationship between art & progress, between unconventional thinkers & revolutionary paradigms.
Asocha aims to knit art & advocacy through story-telling.
We amplify the voices of our artists, contend with questions big & small, while working towards the betterment of our global community.
Asocha’s Foundation
Asocha Co’s is built on the premise that business can be an agent for positive change. We accomplish this through:
Advocacy. Advocacy is woven throughout our platform, with artists having the opportunity to sponsor a cause they care about, and additional resources for you to support and participate in these movements.
Giving Back. We put our money where our mouth is. 10% of every purchase goes towards a charitable cause. You are empowered to determine what your money supports — you decide which charity your dollars go to.
Respecting Our Artist Community. We amplify our artists voices through communicating their story and message. They get paid fair commissions for their art, and we provide our artists agency over how their art is priced and printed. Every fine art purchase directly pays an artist.
My Role: Founder & Full stack UX designer
Opportunity
From my research speaking with artists, regular people, reading reports, and analyzing competitors, I found a few notable forces at play.
Growth of ethical consumerism.
Ethical consumerism has grown into a powerful market force in past years. 9 in 10 Millennials would switch to a brand associated with a cause. Consumers, especially among Millenials and Gen Zers, are more driven to support brands and products which align with their progressive values.
One such example is paper and plant-based straws compared to plastic straws (NPD). Other examples are the rise of ethical, cruelty-free make-up brands and the shift in hair care products to natural ingredients.
Asocha provides that for the wall decor market.
Too much selection.
The un-curated approach to presenting art quickly became difficult to narrow and overwhelming to browse through.
Lack of context around art pieces.
Few to no details about the artist or the meaning of work were provided, missing an opportunity to build an emotional connection with the audience.
Primacy of online video content.
The reality of the web these days is that it’s driven by video. With increasing internet performance, static sites are now relics of a foregone age. Yet, looking around, no one in the space had adopted video content yet.
Lack of agency for emerging artists on large platforms.
Big platforms such as a Society6 or Redbubble give artists a very modest percentage of each sale, slim hopes of ever getting discovered through the sea of other artists, and little agency when it comes to pricing their work.
Millenials and Gen Z haven’t been added to the art collectors market as of yet.
With all the other fine art sites, like Artsy, sitting at high price points and designed & marketed for older art collectors, there was a relatively untapped market for Millenials and Gen Z to invest in emerging artists at an accessible price point with messaging that resonates.
Solution
I researched, architected, and built a responsive site that is modern, fun and inspiring, while centering artists and story-telling.
Curated selection.
Offering a vetted selection of high quality artists and pieces.
Driven by values.
Building a business around values that customers could feel good about supporting:
Advocacy.
Giving Back.
Respecting Our Artist Community.
Sustainability.
Story-telling.
Giving artists ample room to tell the story of their work and creativity and to connect with audiences.
Discover
Research Objectives.
Seek out opportunities in the art and home decor spaces.
I sought to
Understand people’s criteria for purchasing art.
Pain points and opportunities are for optimizing online art and home decor shopping experiences.
Understand pain points and opportunities for artists within selling online.
Methods
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Competitive research
Competitive research is one of the most effective, low-cost ways to see how alternative services solve similar product challenges, as well as their positioning, messaging and branding strategy.
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User interviews
User interviews, where I hear user perspectives first-hand, often provide the richest insights—one can glean full context, ask follow-up questions, hear free associations, spontaneous pain points, and unforeseen opportunities.
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Expert interviews
I interviewed art collectors, print manufacturers, and artists to get a holistic understanding of the space and what opportunities present themselves for the world. of online art.
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Society6
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Redbubble
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Artsy
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Saatchi
