2010 – 2015

Digital Asset
Management for
Fine Arts Publishing

Job Info

Employer – Acrush AG
Duration – 5 Years (2010-2015)

Roles

Jack of all trades
UX Design
UI Design
Business Development
Product Management
Product & Service Design
Support

Key Activities

Project Management / Testing 30%
Business Development 20%
Client Support 20%
UX Design 20%
UI Design 10%

Collaboration Partners / Teammates

Scipio Schneider – Business Development
Stefan Altenburger – Business Development
Marco Früh – Business Development
Thomas Berger – Grafic Design

Beat Seeliger – panter AG / Lead Developer
Zsolt Benke – independent / Developer

Clients

Urs Fischer (Artist Studio)
Galerie Eva Presenhuber
Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst
Ugo Rondinone (Artist Studio)
Art at Swiss Re
Rudolf Stingel (Artist Studio)

Domain

www.ref.im

Main Tasks

Reference Image Core Services and Product Development
Defining all frontend and backend services and features of a highly specialised digital asset management service and its APIs.

Client Customisations
Integration of our services and workflows in client environments, development of custom features.

Client Custom Projects
Development of single-page web applications and websites.

Digital Imaging Service Design and Production Management
Design and implementation of colour managed digitisation workflows

Side Tasks

Writing Business Plans
Human Resources
Digital Imaging Workflow Support for Developers and Clients

Reference Image allows individuals and organisation in the fine art world to maintain a high-quality image publishing workflow regardless of their technical skills.

To achieve commercial release status, our solution had to support the whole lifecycle of digital image publishing in print and online.
Client-side publishing procedures and the complexity of digital imaging technology – I first had to gain proficiency in all fields related to our business, my main challenge was to fill up the knowledge gaps for all stakeholders involved.

As lead designer and jack of all trades, I was in charge of all executive branches of the company until the core service went commercial in 2015.

2000 – 2015
Building a business: Phases

1.

From design graduate to project lead in 6 weeks

I discovered the realities of a running a startup: all parts of the ux design process are mutually intertwined, simultaneous rather than separated and embedded in broader tasks – which converged in satisfying our existing alpha version clients. Good thing I always had an enthusiasm for fine art and could rely on a number of personal relationships for testing, inspiration and feedback.

Translated the mission of the project founders into a product roadmap
Workflow and knowledge immersion
Expectation and budget constraints management.
Acquired the methods of managing onsite and nearshore development team.

Basics. Reference Image addresses supports key interactions with data over the complete image lifecycle

Tools. Color Proofing is the currency of trust and professionalism in prublishing

Machines. Immersion with printing technology, workshops with Fogra and RIP provider

Gamuts. The core service being colour conversion, we had to get on top of the respective industry standards.

2.

Lean by the letter

Each and every feature to be released had to be sold to an existing or prospective client. This had two implications: on the one hand, I had to reduce any user interface design to the strict minimum and focus on functionality. On the other hand, I found ways to foster the needs of a generally silent user base to support further roadmap decisions.

Wrote a Business Plan
Delivered a Web Application for Urs Fischer
Developed and released the key features of the colour managed image workflow
Built new client partnerships to develop and test specific features of the service

3.

Catering to Artists

We developed a marketing strategy to showcase our high definition image zoom capabilities. It included low budget website productions to young and upcoming artists – some first steps into our community building efforts. Working with the millennial generation helped me transition to more contemporary UX paradigms that were at the core of our services.

New Corporate Design and Application Styleguide
Delivered a custom application for Rudolf Stingel
Revamped the intra-platform library and sharing paradigm
Developed a lightweight CMS for fast portfolio website projects

Share by Link. iPhone8

Share by Link. Image Overview

Share by Link. Single View with Chrome

Share by Link. Single View

Share by Link. Single Zoom

Landing. New Corporate Identity

4.

Scaling Up

Our learnings from previous phases gave us the confidence to tackle more comprehensive client projects, which, in return would allow widening the feature-set to cater to the needs of bigger organisations and amplify our exposure to a broader public. The commercial release became a necessity, which had to be secured by acquiring new talent in sales.