Athens Era — Emerging Media Capstone Journey

13 min readDec 13, 2022

Kelly May Sheehan & Zoë Phalen

Project Pitch

Athens, Georgia is known for its southern culture. Football in Sanford Stadium, outstanding eateries all around, great bars and small shops downtown, and local artists mixed in. But where can you find these artists?

Athens Era is a website where people can buy and sell local Athens, GA artwork. Through this website, people may explore several pieces of artwork, communicate with artists, and even sell artwork themselves!

Athens Era creates a personal experience for people to browse local art and buy it online. This immersive experience is designed to spread the Athens culture farther than before and spotlight local artists in a fun and unique way.

Project Overview

The Capstone Project Journey started with Capstone Project Ideation and Research. This part of the journey was especially trying for our team, as we could not secure a client with needs that fit the criteria of the project. We tracked down several companies and dead ends with either no design team, no interest in help, and already established products. After meeting with a client face-to-face and understanding their market, we discovered that there was not enough interest in the target audience. We stayed true to our goal, to create an impactful product, and decided to create one of our choice, rather than following another company’s direction.

From the conception of Athens Era, we went straight into designing and developing the website. We obtained the domain and connected it to Wordpress. We created a Project Brief to outline our steps, a Style Guide to strategically manage our design elements, and later, a User Experience Research Plan to guide further development. With all of the features we visualized for success of the website, we opted for assistance from plug-ins within WordPress. We focused on functionality, then styled it for user satisfaction. As we move into this final stage of the journey, we anticipate that obtaining interest and participation of artists/ vendors will factor into our next obstacles. We are proud of our beta product and hope to uncover new perspectives from user testing.

A presentation video of our beta product and research plans for the project can be viewed here and an in-depth overview of the site can be viewed here.

Description of the Problem

Athens Era came into fruition at the realization that there is a lack of a community-oriented and personalized website that truly connects artists and buyers. The current avenues for showcasing and discovering local art include browsing local boutique stores and commencing a deep dive on global e-commerce sites, nothing specific to Athens.

Popular platforms such as ArtFinder and Etsy greatly inspired the development of Athens Era. The overall functionality and available features of ArtFinder provide a solid foundation of establishing an art-focused website. Features such as Shop Pages, Reviews, Quick Links, and About Pages are loosely incorporated into Athens Era’s construction. However, ArtFinder is not as easily accessible for new and just-starting artists as they require a tumultuous application process in order to obtain a ‘seller’ profile.

Etsy on the other hand is more seller-friendly and boasts significantly fewer restrictions in the process of becoming a seller. The ease and accessibility of Etsy makes it easier for newer artists to create a shop of their work. Additionally, customizable Shop Pages and descriptions allow for sellers to brand their shop and style it according to their own identity. Unfortunately, it is difficult for new artists to stand out in such a densely populated market.

The Digital Solution

By combining the functionality and features of ArtFinder and the usability and personalization of Etsy, Athens Era offers a balanced combination that is both welcoming to new artists and accessible to buyers. Not only do these aspects provide a foundation for Athens Era, but they also provide a means of inspiration for other features, such as in-platform communication (absent in both ArtFinder and Etsy), customizable buyer profiles, and item update notifications.

Athens Era aims to ease the process of connecting with local artists. Designed for the Athens area, Athens Era will provide a platform for Athens-based artists to maintain a small e-commerce store and communicate with potential buyers. By limiting the audience to Athens neighborhoods and surrounding communities, Athens Era ensures that local artists are receiving the most direct exposure to their intended audiences. By making the platform free to use, Athens Era is also able to ensure that 100% of the proceeds directly benefit the artists and small businesses hosting their shops on the platform. Athens Era will ultimately promote the connections between artist and buyer and establish a greater relationship and appreciation for the Athens community.

Project Features

The website contains a homepage, shop page, community page, about page, join and login pages, and a checkout page. On the first visit to the website, users are taken to the homepage, which includes descriptions of the site, a call to action, featured artists, popular products, and more. From each section, users may be directed to another page with more information.

Specifically, for artists, they may join and login to the website and manage their account to sell artwork, display their story, and provide additional information. Due to the e-commerce function of the site, we created several policies to ensure credibility and compliance. We aim to help local artists grow their business and spread appreciation for art in Athens.

Technology Used

The website will is built on Wordpress and altered with design elements and several plugins for communication and payment features. Prototypes are created on Figma and Adobe XD. Logos and graphics are created with Adobe Illustrator.

Prototype: Mock-ups and prototypes for Athens Era were built using Figma and Adobe Xd. This includes prototypes for layout, features, and functionality.

Design: Adobe Illustrator was utilized for design purposes. This includes establishing and creating the logos, icons, and imagery.

Develop: The Athens Era site is built using Wordpress with the utilization of plugins such as WooCommerce to establish the marketplace functionality.

Potential Impact

As proud UGA alumni, we hope to give back to the Athens, GA community through the creation of athensera.com. For all folks who appreciate artwork, we hope to provide a platform for them to use and enjoy. We envision the website to be used as more than a marketplace, but as a way to connect to others in Athens, or who have strong ties to the community.

Athens Era is an online art marketplace solution for both buyers and sellers. As it relates to the latter, current avenues to host online art shops and sell art are over-saturated and often require months of applications, waiting, and extraneous fees. Athens Era aims to provide small artists the opportunity to host their online shop in a more beneficial manner. By making the platform free to use and ensuring that sellers receive 100% of the proceeds for their transactions, Athens Era artists are able to retain a greater profit from their sales. They are also granted the ability to host their shop and a smaller and less-saturated platform. This allows for more exposure and a greater opportunity for small artists to promote their art. On the other hand, buyers receive just as much of a benefit shopping on Athens Era as the artists do selling on the site. Athens Era hosts Athens-area artists without a compromise in location demographics. This means that all purchases made on Athens Era directly benefit an Athens small business. Keeping Athens small businesses alive and thriving ensures that the community we all know and love maintains its charm and culture.

Because Athens Era is a new company, outreach is expected to be small initially. However, as we begin to populate our artist database and add to the growing product collection, we predict the buyer population and audience to follow.

For future EM students, we hope that this project inspires you to go beyond your capabilities, to explore various technologies and learn more about web development and design through the process.

The Pivots and Development

We pivoted our entire capstone project after doing initial user research.

Our journey was not smooth and included a hard pivot. In the beginning, we we were set on creating a mobile app for Athens Health and Fitness, a local gym. After some initial user research and meeting with the gym associates, we decided it was not the right path for us. There was not enough interest in the target audience and we wanted to work on a meaningful and impactful project that could outlive our investments. We pivoted and landed on our idea for an art marketplace website, where Athens artists and buyers can meet and exchange artwork.
We first envisioned our website to have a page for artists and a page for users, however, this changed throughout development. We had been heads down into creating the website with a strict plan and goal in mind. After meeting with our Instructor, Chris Gerlach, we received valuable feedback of the functionality of our site from a first time user. We repositioned our design framework to account for the ignorance of new users, who may not not if they identify as someone who would “join” or “login”. We discovered that our plug-in was developed for vendors to join and login a site, so they can access their own page and products. We kept this format and added content to direct users into joining if they were an artists wanting to sell on the site. We decided to connect users to the site with a subscription, rather than a user account.

The Style Guide

Colors

The color palette is built from combining Athen’s culture with the sophistication associated with an art gallery. We wanted to keep the Georgia red and black but in a more neutral tone to bring feelings of home and support. The art displayed should be the center of attention, not the site.

Logos

The logo should not only represent a brand, but it should also convey a brand’s voice. The Athens Era logo conveys a clean and sleek appearance with a nod to a symbol that truly represents the community that Athens Era aims to serve. The Athens Era logo system offers a collection of full-color standard and alternative logos. Each logo style also possesses a black-and-white alternative.

Typography

Our design uses Poppins (headers), Poppins Extra Bold (sub headers), and Glacial Indifference (body text). These fonts are sleek, yet elementary. They are sophisticated, yet simple. They are not outlandish or extreme. They aim to bring feelings of a clean aesthetic and put together interfaces.

Design Takeaways

Maintaining a proper design system across documents and sites made it easier for us to uphold our desired brand image. While we developed numerous iterations for logos, typography, and color palettes, we are pleased to have established them all in a way that reflects our mission. It allows us to consistently portray an exciting and welcoming voice as we develop our marketplace further.

Competitive Advantage Report

We initially identified a need for this site through our own experiences. Both of us, being heavily interested and passionate about art and design, determined that there is a disconnect between artists and buyers. Furthermore, the avenues that do exist for artists to promote and sell their art do not typically benefit small artists and those who are just beginning their career in art. On the opposite end, buyers often want to feel a connection to the art that they are buying. This connection stems from a good buyer/seller relationship, opportunities to support small artists, and the chance to foster a greater connection within the community.

While there are numerous e-commerce sites that are considered the ‘go-to’ for selling and buying art, there has yet to be one that empathizes with the community. That is where Athens Era comes in. Athens Era alleviates the aforementioned pain-points while promoting a more personalized approach to supporting the local Athens art community.

Our competitors include local galleries in Athens with online promotion and large e-commerce sites for handmade art. We specifically researched The Tiny ATH Gallery, ArtFinder.com, and Artd’hope.com.

Competitive Advantage:

Function as an online forum and e-commerce site for local art, but only specific to the Athens Community
Larger reach and ease for artists
Greater accessibility for the public compared to physical options in Athens

User Experience Research Plan (UX-RP)

The 30 page research plan includes:

Research Goals
Methodology
Personas
Testing Instruments
Task Tables
Pre-Test & Psot-Test Surveys
System Usability Scale
Product Reaction Cards
Analysis

View here: UX-RP

User Testing Findings

Using our UX-RP, we conducted user testing of 9 participants and analyzed our findings as shown in the Research Report.

View here: Research Report

Resources

Our competitive research played a huge part in our design plan and website development. Using similar frameworks of large e-commerce art marketplaces, we were able to alter the experience to showcase a more local marketplace. Our Instructors have also been very valuable along this journey in providing feedback during each stage of development and direction for our individual project checkpoints. Findings from our User Experience Research Plan highlighted various pain points within the user flow. We were able to alleviate these pain points to provide the optimal user experience.

Emerging Media Masters Overview

The Emerging Media Masters Program is housed under the New Media Institute at The University of Georgia. The program is described as the intersection between design and technology. It has a wide breadth of offerings, providing students with access to hands-on classroom environments, innovative technologies, and networking opportunities. The Emerging Media Masters focuses heavily on interactive digital media through a project-based curriculum encompassing front-end web development, user experience design, product ideation, and more. Emerging Media Masters candidates are required to produce an Emerging Media Capstone. Although varying in scope, students are required to call upon the theory, practice, skills, and experiences gained in the diverse courses taken during their Emerging Media journey. Typical Capstones include product development, applied technical or design research publications, and client-based solutions. Capstone completion is ongoing throughout the entire Emerging Media journey. Read more about the Emerging Media Masters here.

Overview of Capstone Journey

Overall, this project has served to be the most valuable asset in our professional and personal developments. This will serve as a project to speak on during interviews to showcase our UX/UI design and development skills. There have been a few notable challenges and victories from the journey:

Challenges: project ideation, connection with clients, imposter syndrome(not thinking we are capable of completing a complex project)

Victories: switching to a project idea we are excited about, learning how to develop an e-commerce website on WordPress, connecting with Athens artists and consumers

Zoë’s EM Journey

Zoë Phalen graduated from the University of North Georgia in 2022 with Bachelors in English with a speciality in Writing and Publication, while minoring in Spanish. While completing her undergraduate degree, Zoë fell in love with Information Architecture and wanted to pursue the digital design field further. She discovered the opportunity to do so with UGA’s NMI and immediately applied. She will be graduating in May of 2023 with a Masters in Emerging Media and plans to pursue a career in UX/UI Design and Graphic Design. Fun fact: Zoë has 7 tattoos and has design tattoos for four of her friends!

Kelly May’s EM Journey

Kelly May graduated from The University of Georgia in 2022 with a Bachelors in Business Administration, major in Risk Management and Insurance, and a certificate in Actuarial Science. As much as she enjoyed serious math problems and data analytics, the path was not fulfilling her creative personality. She discovered the intersection of business, design, and technology at the NMI and has not looked back. She will be graduating with a Masters in Emerging Media in May 2023, pursuing a career in UX/UI Design and Research. Fun fact: She started her own art business, selling commissioned acrylic paintings.

Advice for Future Students

We are very grateful for this project and have learned so much along the way. From our experience, we would encourage others in the program to spend time exploring different design tools, like Weebly, Webflow, Wordpress, and Wix — but also, don’t doubt that you can’t make something amazing in plain ole HTML, CSS, and bootstrap! You’re skills will drastically improve as the program goes on, so don’t worry about aesthetics in the beginning — think about what product you want to offer and the functionality it needs to have!

Also, make sure you see a future for it! You want your work to outlive your time at the NMI!

Reflection for EM Cohort Spring 2023

Thank you to all of our peers who have supported and encouraged our capstone journey. We appreciate all of the feedback on deliverables and projects during the program. It has been so inspiring to see the progress each team has made in the past year! We are proud to be about of this cohort and can’t wait to see the creative work everyone pursues!