ArtDash

Freelance art is a core pillar of the furry fandom, an online subculture community based around interest in anthropomorphic animal characters. Cass, as a frequent client of many artists, found the process inconsistent and convoluted—a sentiment shared with many other peers.

Despite the importance of art, there exists no service that meets the specific needs of the fandom art trade.

Everyone agreed discoverability wasn't a problem. Artists also said they were already overwhelmed with the number of platforms they need to market and manage.

Creating another platform would be of limited effect and would likely push artists away rather than attract them. Moreover, poor engineer Cassius would have to spend huge amounts of time and energy on creating the complex backend needed for a platform-style site.

A common recurring pain point for clients is missing openings for artists they waited months if not years to commission, which led to much frustration and disappointment.

Additionally, many clients reported often being ghosted when their applications are rejected—this is also due to a lack of accessible, affordable services that can automate things like email notifications.

The number of tools and platforms they must engage with to run their business is a common pain point. They feel mired by the tedium of dispatching emails and cross-posting to multiple social media accounts.

While many tools and platforms exist to try to address these administrative needs, the lack of a "complete" solution only makes this experience more fractured and tedious.

Address one of the biggest pain points for artists in the community: the need to be one's own secretary and marketing department.

The amount of busywork detracts from artists spending time on actually drawing. This  leads to both diminished client experiences as artists become less communicative, and reduced output as they spend more time on what is effectively paperwork.

Developing ArtDash into a robust tool in streamlining the commission opening process would significantly reduce artists' busywork by allowing them to more effectively communicate with their clientele.

Improve client experiences by making all relevant information readily accessible in one place without having to brute force across multiple platforms.

Many artists interviewed already use landing page services like Carrd or Linktree to display some of their commission information, so providing a richer alternative with live commission statuses could prove extremely valuable.

Consolidating this information would lead to fewer instances of clients having to brute force check artists they are interested in, or forgoing some artists entirely as they aren't present on their preferred communication platform.

Many artists opened for the same kind of work regularly, often with monthly cadences. I included ways for artists to quickly duplicate and re-create past openings.

To make ArtDash easier to support, we included ways to both import a form from other platforms (such as Google Sheets) as well as permitting artists to link to response collection elsewhere. ArtDash would still manage announcements and the artist's DashCard as they open and close.

Many artists opened for the Artists were very varied on how when they opened or closed for applications. ArtDash recognises these different methods, such as scheduling at a fixed time, closing after a set number of responses, or allowing the artist to manually open and close.

Trying to let interested clients know of new openings was a common pain point with artists. I conceptualised a system where artists could set up automatic posting of announcements and reminders across their communication channels.

We soon learned that a fully-fledged announcement automation system would be challenging on both an engineering and design front—we decided to pivot and backlog that feature.

Instead, we refocused on what was minimally viable. All our clients agreed that email was among their most preferred methods of communication, which would be much simpler to develop.

An extra benefit of email notifications: users can manage and unsubscribe from mailing lists without needing to log in or have an account.

This helps users—clients especially—avoid the hassle of making an account or downloading apps, which will make ArtDash more forgiving to adopt.