Project Overview

Aarting is a crowdfunding platform that makes it easy for visual artists to create and sell custom products.

Organisation

Aartng

Team

Todd Wahnish: www.linkedin.com/in/wahnish; Atlanta College of Art, BFA: Painting; Residency NYSRP; Startup Leadership Program 2014 Fellow; UI/UX Frontend Design

Melissa Wahnish: http://linkd.in/10fqI7x; 2001, Marymount Manhattan College, BA: Theater: Acting; Ruby on Rails Backend

Project Brief

THE BEGINNING
I began as a homeless artist in NYC, able to only take a shower once every few weeks (bit.ly/1n8v51v). I found myself in this position because, after 8 years of traditional art training, I was focused on making artwork instead of building a business that makes artwork.

I changed my life and started my own art business that focused on working with the top creative brands in the world. My clients included Cartoon Network, Marvel Entertainment and Jeff Koons - the most successful artist since Andy Warhol. I learned how they used promotion to help built a world class brand and, along with Melissa (my wife & co-founder), learned how to code by creating Aarting.com - a platform where artists can build a life around what they create.

Our long term goal is in accelerating and commoditizing artists so that they can be self-sustaining, have long term careers and/or art businesses for themselves.

Project Innovation/Need

Aarting uses a vertically integrated, print-on-demand commerce model and combines it with personal crowdfunding. This means that Aarting is similar in many ways to Kickstarter or IndieGoGo with one major difference: instead of giving one large donation towards a big project, with Aarting you can give support to the creators you love by receiving limited edition products on an ongoing basis.

We’re disrupting the entire art ecosystem by injecting leverage into an independent creators’ market. For the first time in history, the artist’s income will become as predictable and sustainable as their willingness to create and promote new content.

Design Challenge

To work for visual artists and their audiences, the site needed to feel as invisible as possible while retaining all the functionality of a cutting-edge, modern ecommerce platfom. The design challenge for this project involved creating an incredibly clean, clear, and minimal interface that focused on the story of the artist and the imagery of the artworks submitted, combined with the development of a complex content delivery network. No functionality of the site could interfere with the presentation of the artist or work.

Future Impact

The end result saw several successful campaigns for artists, attracting an average of 879 people to each artist's page. Some artists have already seen their annual sales increase by 20%. We are continuing to develop the site concept further.