200+ artists, one marketplace
Prototype of a redesigned artist profile, foundation for a marketplace beta.
Pendleton Art Center is a Cincinnati institution — 200+ studio artists under one roof. The existing site was a directory; the brief is to turn it into a marketplace where each artist has a proper profile, shop, and scheduling.
What was going on
The constraint is fit-to-context: this is a community of working artists, not a SaaS waiting to happen. The redesign has to respect the craft while giving each artist real tooling.
How I worked it
- 01
A React prototype of the artist profile page — built outside WordPress so we could move fast on IA and type.
- 02
Plugin architecture decision: explored MarketKing + Woodmart for the Cloudways/Vultr stack rather than migrating to headless. Lower ongoing cost for PAC; more familiar admin surface.
- 03
Editorial-first typography. Artists are the feature, not the chrome.
The parts worth naming
- Artist profile prototype
React, clean IA, collapsible story/shop/schedule sections.
- IA audit
Annotated walkthrough of the existing directory + the jump to marketplace.
What shipped
Prototype in review. Marketplace beta sequencing tied to PAC's own calendar.
- Artists in scope
- 200+
- Prototype
- React profile page, reviewed internally
- Next step
- Pattern library + marketplace beta scoping
What it was built with
- WordPress
- Sage
- MarketKing
- Woodmart
- React (prototype)
- Figma