Building an online community for brands
PROJECT BACKGROUND
It aims to provide value to online and emerging brands by giving them the opportunity to gain physical exposure in NYC by participating in curated fashion pop-up events that highlight seasonal trends through art and design.
Canvas Community, is an extension of the brand. One which offers its members the access to business resources, buyers, industry experts, influencers and networking opportunities.
This was worked on as part of the graduate capstone project at Parsons School of Design. It is based on the research conducted from 2018 - 2019, including the one done for the Retail Landscape project.
DEFINING THE PROBLEM
Over the past few years, the news headlines predicted the retail apocalypse, alarming those in the industry to question the future of retail. The insights from our research proved that boring retail was dead, not retail that creates inspiring spaces for shoppers to develop long-lasting, deeper connections with brands.
OPPORTUNITY AREA
Retail as an event $45 Billion* market size of the pop-up industry in the US
*retail as an event is projected to continue growing
CONSUMER BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS
COMPETITVE ANALYSIS
OUR OFFERINGS
Host events in different shopping corridors of New York City.
Offer lower pop-up cost for brands.
Create brand activations for online and emerging brands.
Craft unique customer experiences for like- minded brands in a collaborative space.
Provide brands insights on consumer behavior.
PROTOTYPE & USABILITY TESTING
Round 1
The first prototype consisted of using wireframes for our website to engage and test out how users responded to the general flow of the website and identifying key description aspects for the business.
Round 2
To test our concept with founders of online and emerging brands and iterated it based on their feedback. We shared our concept book with brands to get a fair understanding of how our target audience interacted with the concept and what were their friction points.
PRODUCT DESIGN
A book given to all potential users - online and emerging brands, to better understand the event and one that sets the mood and theme for brands. This serves as the first touchpoint for potential brands to engage with Canvas.
The first few pages set the mood and invite brands to participate in our launch event. As planned the first event would take place in Spring 2020, for which we scouted the location, mapped out the floor plan of the event and also provided a market analysis of SoHo of where the event would be hosted. This enables brands to get a deeper understanding of their market and what Canvas has to offer. We also included Canvas Community in the guide that illustrates the benefits of being a member.
