MUSIC COLLABORATION

CONCEPTS / INTERACTION DESIGN / VISUAL DESIGN

Audiocitizen is meant to help recording artists enhance creativity and increase exposure by offering a simple and effective music collaboration tool. It presents an opportunity to showcase musical talent driven by constant, round-the-clock outpour of creativity through crowdsourcing. Record labels, music venues, concert halls, vendors, audio recording software companies along with radio stations have an opportunity to fish out talent, pitch their product or sponsor up-and-coming artists. Consumers of the application, on the other hand, have a chance to listen to and create their own musical arrangements that fit their tastes.

MusicCollaboration_IdeaPreview

THE IDEA

Audiocitizen surfaced as an idea around 2004 while I was in a musical group. The project was very engaging and brought a lot of joy into my life. At one point we began discussing a potential move to California. While the idea seemed great, I simply did not feel ready for the big move with the band. Naturally, I started thinking of ways to continue collaborating on music with the group in the event of their move. Audiocitizen was born... in my mind. Ever since then, I have felt almost haunted by this idea. I started writing down random thoughts about it, later sketching them on paper. In graduate school, I built the first prototype as part of my Capstone project. It was a rough vision of the application created in Flash (yup, we're talking early 2007 here). With time, Audiocitizen began to take form of my baby project and design therapy in one. I keep going back to it, creating wireframes of its features, then translating those into high fidelity mockups. I certainly hope to build the app at some point.

MusicCollaboration_CollaborationsPreview

COLLABORATIONS

OPPORTUNITY

Any type of music we listen to is usually made up of tracks layered on top of each other to form anything from simplest to most complex musical arrangements. These tracks include commonly recognizable vocal lines, guitar, drum or electronic parts, to name a few, forming a cohesive unit when "glued" together. Each of these elements, in a traditional sense, is composed and recorded by individuals getting together to form and promote a band. While it's an amazing social experience to be a part of such project, its drawbacks are usually related to the fact that those individuals must be in close physical proximity to each other in order for the engagement to work.

SOLUTION

Audiocitizen allows people from around the world to collaborate on and compose music. Each contributing member has the ability to pitch in their creativity on track-by-track basis. Physical proximity is no longer a constraint, while creativity can run wild.

Music Tailored To Your Needs

MUSIC TAILORED TO YOUR TASTE

OPPORTUNITY

With the abundance of streaming audio services, users have a wide range of products and musical genres to choose from. This open model is an amazing way to experience music, but there is an opportunity to go deeper into it. What if, as a user, you could have a chance to customize not only the types of music you're interested in, but actually have the ability to carefully craft the music itself?

SOLUTION

Since Audiocitizen collaborations are created on track-by-track basis, let's give users the ability to choose the tracks they like and omit the ones they don't. Each collaboration can be customized, then added to a playlist. Each contributing member's information is tracked within the collaboration, so it's the user who forms the band of their liking, not the other way around.

Audiocitizen Spinoffs

SPINOFFS

OPPORTUNITY

As a musician, I may like certain collaborations more than others. How can I contribute my talent to something that resonates with me on an artistic level? Can I use what has been created thus far to add a bit of my personal touch to it?

SOLUTION

Musicians can contribute to any open collaboration. If their contribution is accepted by the collaboration's owner, then we have a winning formula for a great project. But what if it's not? Introducing Spinoff! Spinoff allows new contributing members to take a snapshot of the collaboration they like and create a new one based on that, just so they can freely explore the creative possibilities that stem from it. The new contributing member becomes the owner of the Spinoff, giving them control over how the arrangement unfolds. Once again, the original contributors' information is still tracked, so the credit is given where it's due.

Audiocitizen Profile

PROFILE

OPPORTUNITY

As a contributing artist, I would like a way to keep track of all the collaborations, tracks and songs that I have contributed to the Audiocitizen community.

SOLUTION

Contributor's profile provides a snapshot of everything that the individual is involved with. It presents entry points to recognizable areas of the application, with clear and visually appealing interactive elements, all in a neat mobile framework. Here, users can also check their account status and upgrade it with a touch of a button.

DESIGN

MARKETPLACE

The Gobbler Marketplace is a revolutionary ecommerce platform bringing the subscription model to the world of audio plugins. Home recording enthusiasts, professional audio producers, radio station and tv audio engineers have an opportunity to add world class audio plugins to their arsenals on demand.

RESEARCH / USABILITY STUDIES / FLOWS / WIRES / INTERACTION DESIGN / VISUAL DESIGN

TRAVEL APPLE WATCH

During this short and very fast paced project, my initial goal was to understand the anatomy and design capabilities of the Apple Watch. Without the actual device in my hands, the most reliable source of knowledge was the Apple Watch Human Interface Guidelines document. Armed with patience, but eager to begin the design process, I set out to do some research.

RESEARCH / FLOWS / WIRES / INTERACTION DESIGN / VISUAL DESIGN

EMAIL DESIGN

The project called for collecting information about every single email sent out to the users by the system, then standardizing the language, appearance and building new HTML/CSS templates.

RESEARCH / WIRES / FLOWS / VISUAL DESIGN

MOBILE EXPLORE CARD

The Mobile Explore Card is meant to be a personalized, data driven solution allowing travelers to explore the area they are visiting.

RESEARCH / FLOWS / WIRES / INTERACTION DESIGN / VISUAL DESIGN

OS X CLIENT APP CONCEPTS

Aside from syncing and versioning backed up creative assets, the Gobbler Client App offers a unique ability to license and manage audio plugin subscriptions purchased through the Gobbler Marketplace. This concept project focused on redesigning those screens.

CONCEPTS / VISUAL DESIGN

PUBLISHER DESIGN GUIDELINES

The Publisher Design Guidelines is an all encompassing visual style guide providing publishers with the information they need in order to produce appropriate visual assets for use within the Gobbler universe.

DESIGN PATTERNS / TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION

MOBILE USABILITY IMPROVEMENTS

I had a chance to play around with a beautifully designed Japanese mobile app Mercari. According to the company, "Mercari is the biggest community-powered shopping fair in the palm of your hand. Shop from thousands of sellers with one-click purchases, and quickly sell your own new, pre-owned or handmade items." It's an amazing app, however, during my review, I took a stab at the top 10 usability improvements the app could use before moving to the U.S. market. Check them out!

CONCEPTS

E-COM CART & CHECKOUT REDESIGN

It’s the cash register we’re talking about here. Yeah, it’s kind of important that it works. Otherwise, we might as well pack up our bags and look for an entertaining project elsewhere. No moola, no fun and games.

RESEARCH / USABILITY STUDIES / FLOWS / WIRES / INTERACTION DESIGN