Brief: Independent artists like musicians, singers, comedians, photographers, etc, struggle to find new opportunities to show off their talent and kickstart their career.

The same applies to places like hotels and restaurants that find it hard to hire indie artists.

I wanted to have some data to start with so I approached 8 of my friends who happen to be musicians, singers, production artist. And they provided me with some key insights for my study.

They all said there is no proper platform for them to kickstart their career. All of them get gigs through referrals and their own personal network. ❌

One of the main challenges that independent artists face is the lack of exposure and opportunities to perform or showcase their work.

This can make it difficult for them to gain recognition and build a fan base, which is essential for the success of any artist.

The one way how artists overcome this challenge is to use social media and other online platforms to promote their work and connect with potential fans and collaborators

Another way for independent artists to find opportunities is to network with other artists and industry professionals. They attend events, workshops, and conferences where they can meet other artists and learn about opportunities in the industry.

These artists also join online communities and forums where they can connect with other artists and learn about new opportunities and resources.

In terms of finding opportunities to perform or showcase their work, these artists look for local events and venues that support indie artists.

If you’re an indie artist, you want to be:

Seen in the limelight and start off your career 🌟

Quickly be able to find a list of all the available events happening in real time.

Able to look for gigs, catered to your needs.

Able to showcase your talent.

If you’re a business owner, you want to:

Quickly see a variety of artists according to their needs.

Set budgets, timing, locations so they can select relevant artists.

Set up an identity where artists can approach them.

Hire artists which are talented, so they can look at their past works, testimonials, artists overall profile.

No personalized experienced for artists to find opportunities.

Hotels, cafes, restaraunts struggle to find good artists accustommed to their needs.

Lack of transparency.

No real time tracking of events and artists

An application which helps indie artists to find temporary or full time gigs.

Independent Artists

Business owners

There are many platforms for freelancing like Upwork, Fiverr, AirGags which provide freelance artists but the current solutions are not offering personalized experience and real-time hiring.

An app that helps indie artists find temporary or full-time gigs would likely have a broad target market that includes independent artists of all types, as well as businesses and organizations that are looking to hire artists for events or other purposes.

For independent artists: such an app could provide a valuable resource for finding new opportunities to showcase their talent and build their careers. It could help them discover gigs in their local area, as well as connect with potential clients and collaborators who are looking for artists with their specific skills and expertise.

For businesses and organizations: an app like this could be a useful tool for finding and hiring talented independent artists for their events or other needs.

It could provide a convenient platform for searching for artists based on their

location

genre

and other criteria,

and for reaching out to artists to discuss potential opportunities and make bookings.

By providing a platform for connecting artists with potential clients and opportunities, this app could help both parties find what they are looking for and support the growth and success of independent artists.

It took me a long time to come up with a design which could engage the users in an effective manner.

Different iterations of homepage

The most challenging task was to design a good homepage to capture the attention of users.

One of the earlier interface screen

If you look at the screen above, you can see 4 categories have been provided:

Live events

Restaurants

Hotels

Cafes

All the basic information was provided right on the screen along with date, budget, experience, location, gist.

While this method did work, there were simply too many options and information at a given time which could overwhelm the user with all the bombarded information.

So another better solution had to be prepared in order to create a good user experience.

As you can see I removed most of the elements, made it more simpler for the users to grasp.

To arrive at this decision I had to move backwards and think from an artist’s perspective basically his primary motive of why is he using the app.

What I then focused on was the speed. An artist should be quickly be able to see a plethora of options.

After artist looks at the gig information location, budget, duration, requirements are the elements which will drive decision making.

If you want to know how you can design with simplicity in mind, you can check out my article here.

Pain point solved: Personalized experienced for artists to find opportunities.

Pain point solved: No real time tracking of events and artist

Pain point solved: Lack of transparency.

To explore new businesses and people for collaborations, you can connect with everyone through our ecosystem.

Chat option given to the user for ease of communication.

One of my friend is a Dj at a nightclub so I got in touch with the event manager to get more clarity about the current scenario.

So I asked the following questions

As of now the managers look for artists on other social media/ communities platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Reddit.

The current solutions are time consuming and may or may not always be accustomed to their needs.

They have a community on platofrms like reddit, discord and whatsapp. But these existing solutions are not as organized.

A number of indie artists are going to be shown on the screen, so they can be compared and selected by the businesses.

Artist profile is the most pivotal screen out of all the screens. In this app the content of artist itself the core factor for making any decision.

It will have the following information to make relevant decision

3 options given

Work

Services

Testimonials

Links to other profile

Each of these categories provide a certain infromation about the artist which gives an overview and credibility about the artist.

Pain point solved: Hotels, cafes, restaurants struggle to find good artists accustommed to their needs.

Building communities in the app’s ecosystem for various purposes.

Hirey could also provide valuable resources and information for indie musicians, such as advice on how to market themselves and tips for securing gigs.

Musicians are just the starting point of the application. Any indie artist like comedian, magician, even a public speaker, the app will cater to many creative fields in real time for short term or long term gigs.

Working on this personal project really opened my avenues of critical thinking. I devised solutions for each pain point of the user. I looked beyond seemingly perfect solution in order to make it simple and intuitive. By identifying the needs of an artist and a business owner I was able to find a gap.

I am a UX designer you can reach out to me on these other platforms:

Linkedin | Instagram | Twitter | Behance