Art Basel

Art gallery online application system

Intro

Art Basel is an international art fair staged annually in Basel, Switzerland; Miami Beach, Florida; and Hong Kong. It provides a platform for galleries to show and sell their work to buyers, and every year receives thousands of applications from galleries that want to participate in the art fair.

Product consultant Zac Best brought me on board as a lead product designer to help the Art Basel team streamline the application process. They were handling applications working from emails, pdfs, and spreadsheets at the moment. My role included planning, user flows, wireframing, prototyping, testing and UI design.

Challenge

For each Art Basel sector to which galleries wanted to apply, every year had to put together and send via email several files with gallery information, project information, payment confirmation, etc. This method was generating a lot of stress to galleries and to the Art Basel applications team too.

It was also generating a vast amount of duplicated information that wasn't useful or practical. And it was complicated to keep track of everything once the number of applications started to increase

Solution

I created a new section for galleries' profiles on the Art Basel website where galleries could enter their gallery information. Once completed, the gallery information could be updated at any time and was automatically included in their sector applications without having to provide the same information every time.

For the sector-specific applications, we created an online application system making applying to Art Basel shows quick and easy. Galleries only had to complete the project information specific to the sector they selected and then review, submit, and pay.

On the Art Basel side, we created a dashboard where they received all these applications organised by sectors, making them easily manageable.

Results

The new system has proven to be very effective and time-efficient. From launch, all galleries make their application via the online system. Galleries create their profiles on the Art Basel website and following this, submit individual applications for Art Basel sectors, and easily apply to multiple sectors without having to provide with the same information every time, year after year.

Contact

If you want to discuss a new opportunity, project or just say hello, you can get in touch in this email