Taya Bell Art – Artist’s Homepage

Client’s goal

As an artist, you need to showcase your artwork in order to sell and be hired for commissions. It was important for Taya to be visible through different channels and to have a coherent brand image. We made her very first website in 2017, at the beginning of her career. In 2021, we were hired again for a redesign as she, as an artist, developed and outgrew her previous image.

1. Consultation & BrainstormING session

Within one hour of the initial consultation, we went through a series of questions to figure out Taya’s goals and needs. We also received a couple of visuals from her for inspiration and better direction. We then worked out a proposal, project timeline, and a contract agreement.

2. Research & Strategy

The goal was to highlight the Jewish culture and connect it to the artist’s personality. Another important goal was to present the story of the journey she made to rediscover her Jewishness.

Based on those goals and the research results, we decided to go for a calm color scheme and integrate a font family that included both the Latin and the Hebrew letters.

The overall look and feel were set to be minimalistic and elegant. It should be user-friendly for her potential customers and also for her to maintain the website content.

3. Moodboard & LOGO Creation

We created a shared Pinterest board to collect visual ideas and inspiration together.

The client wrote the Hebrew letter Teth for us to create a logo that will appear on her brand collateral. We went through three versions until we had the final one.

It always adds fun to the design process when our client is included in it. And it was certainly the case here: co-creating with an artist educated in Florence, Italy!

4. Brand Guideline & collateral Design

We created a brand guideline based on the mood board. Then a business card, postcards, and event flyers. The design assets were made and organized for the client in one place with regard to easy access.

5. Information Architecture, Wireframe & mockups

Before we started to sketch the website layout, we brainstormed and created detailed documentation of the website structure and features. Then, we designed the wireframes and mockups using Figma. Finally, in a review session with the client, we made adjustments and exchanged comments, using Figma’s built-in features in real-time.

6. Domain and Hosting SETUP, Website Development & Training

Having the name set as the result of the previous branding session, we were ready to start the technical part of the project. We helped to register the domain name and set up the hosting within the given budget.

And once we had the green light for the wireframes, the development of the website started too. In order for the client to follow the progress, we created a staging website with restricted access for our team and the client.

The development process was structured to enable the data entry once a particular page or feature was ready. At the same time, it made it possible for our client to start learning the website content maintenance early on. Besides maintenance, we dived into other essential topics, such as media rights and cyber security.

7. VR Gallery Integration

More and more artists opt-in for a virtual art gallery. As 2020 has shown the importance of being available in the world of digital and online, we integrated a virtual art gallery using the API of the platform Kunstmatrix.

Before she was able to upload her artwork, we edited and saved the images in different sizes.

8. Two art galleries

A particular challenge we faced in this project was finding a way for two different art galleries. One had to be themed uniquely around the Jewish culture and the other to showcase all the other artwork unrelated to the Jewish culture.

We created special templates with different sets of features. For instance, the Jewish-themed gallery has a feature that introduces a visitor to the Jewish calendar and holidays. The gallery contents then are structured around that calendar accompanied by further explanations and the artist’s personal thoughts. The other gallery has a broad set of filters to navigate through a varied collection of artwork easily.

9. Free resource page

The client wanted to have a page where she could upload coloring pages with Jewish themes for people to download for free. We set up such a page and integrated Google Analytics to track every interaction with the resources in detail.

10. Previous Version:

As we mentioned in the beginning, we made the first website for Taya Bell Art in 2017. It had a slideshow right on the front page, a blog, and one art gallery. There was also a slideshow to display the upcoming events and the selected artworks.