Graffy is an online service where customers choose photos by professional photographers around the world, select frame types and receive quality photo prints sent to their door-steps. The objective was to make the process from visiting the website to hanging framed photos on the wall as easy and painless as possible at a genuinely affordable price.

 

My role

Due to the nature of startup environment, I was responsible for all design/creative aspects of the service and beyond: from the service and product development, the design of the user interface, the user experience and quality assurance. To begin with, I developed a brand identity. The logo type was designed to become a window/viewfinder that could frame any types of photography, which was a literal visualisation of the service itself. To be suitable for such a use, the type had to be extra chunky for maximum exposure of the photos. It was then crafted for the right mix of boldness, sophistication and approachability. The tone of the voice was set and the rest of design was created accordingly.

 

Personal challenge 

1. The simplicity was the key to the service. The overall brand experience was defined in order to reinforce the streamlined approach to the service development. To achieve that simplicity, I decided to give users the least options as possible. In that way users could focus on viewing and purchasing photography. An elegant, minimalistic design approach was applied to entice the main target users, photographers and photography lovers. The user journey and experience were carefully considered so that viewing and purchasing process were made straight forward and easy to navigate by implementing full-bleed photos, large typography, crystal clear call-to-action, restrained use of information, graphic elements and colours. 

 

2. To provide suitable selection of photos for the customers, the curation of the photo collection was crucial. The target customer group was people at the age of 20~40’s and several surveys were conducted to find their preferences. They reacted to certain types of photography over others: minimal, soft-coloured, emotion-evoking, aspirational and often symmetrical. From these findings came a curation guideline for more cohesive, holistic browsing experience.