Contemporary Textile Design Studio

Elevating and amplifying the digital impact and outreach of a non-profit design cooperative

In 2017, the founders of the Contemporary Textile Studio Co-operative ( CTSC), a not-for-profit studio situated in Toronto's cultural hub since 2016, needed a website to communicate their mission and programs to help new and seasoned textile artists to secure an affordable and well-equipped studio space for producing their work. It was developed by a group of textile artists for other craftspersons, where members can work, teach, learn, interact, and innovate with other designers and students.

As a former participant of the studio's workshops who had dabbled in artistic pursuits like surface pattern and textile arts, I was thrilled to be asked to volunteer UX/UI designs for a placeholder website until they could find a bigger budget for a complete website overhaul. Having had a first hand experience of the challenges as a user of their former website and its confusing navigation, I volunteered to work closely with their small team of third party development contractors to integrate quick-winning page redesigns to key pages on the cooperative's website .

The co-operatives’s current website is housed under textilestudio.ca . To keep itself financially sustained, the studio offers workshops, classes, textile talks by professional artists to its extended artist/ enthusiasts community.

Overview

Creating a fun-filled &
engaging artist space

As CTSC was still in its infancy, one of the challenges that the cooperative wanted to address through the new design was that sign-ups to their membership programs and workshops were on the decline, leaving them heavily dependent on Ontario Arts Council and a few other private donors to sustain operations. Through the redesign they hoped to be able to offer a modern web experience that attracts more membership sign-ups and workshop participants to raise funding. Eventually, the cooperative’s long term vision was to move to a bigger facility with a better equipped art space. In the new designs, I prioritized highlighting information about new workshops, guest artists and membership options in the landing pages and navigating making it easier to be discovered. I reached out a dozen of its current members to collect honest and passionate testimonials about their experience with the cooperative illustrating how this collaborative space has impacted them. This new addition made the website more inviting for potential future donors.

Humanizing the initiative with stories of real artists

Another goal of the cooperative was to increase their social mentions in the local craft community and target donors. A clean yet modern feel was key to appeal to a wide audience. It was also important to me to include imagery that was representative of the diversity of participants that CTSC wished to help and invite. I addressed this by making it easy for media contacts to navigate to key information about the latest developments and events in the studio. Humanizing the studio’s services by including profiles and headshots of the board of directors, founder(s) and other key personnel helped me help the cooperative leverage a clearly laid out simple redesign that generated leads for them in the next 6 months and spruced conversation in the textile arts community.

Simplicity through imagery

Ultimately, each initiative and workshop was given its own dedicated page to highlight its mission and how individuals could contribute or participate. I identified the key initiatives and moments in the experience like student residencies, customized classes and visiting artist workshops that would benefit from a simple online sign up form that would make it easy for the public to get involved, while also being simple for the cooperative's team to manage.