The Design of a New Environment

The use of Communication Design/Graphic Design on Redbubble.com

At first glance it might seem that the RedBubble website suffers from a lack of graphic design & design elements. There doesn't appear to be a lot of thought put into the design of the site - it may even seem unfinished to some. There is a noticeable lack of fancy rounded buttons, gradients and shadows, there is a lot of white space and straightforward styling of navigation and links.

In actual fact, it becomes obvious that the design of the site has been engineered to focus on the artwork of its members. I am reminded of the advice one of my TAFE lecturers gave me for preparing my design portfolio - the folio must not be better (designed) than the work it contains. In other words, the content should be the focus - not the vehicle of delivery. By maintaining a minimalist, restrained design, RedBubble is keeping the focus on the artwork of its members. As I mentioned in my previous post, it is obvious that the site values its members and the contribution they make towards creating a successful community/marketplace.

Expression of Identity

The Redbubble identity is composed of a mix of design elements, graphics, colours and type styles. The standard RedBubble logo is a sans serif modern font, in medium weight, all lowercase and using the colour contrast to highlight the two separate words that make up the website name.

The RedBubble logo also appears in other formats - there is a 3D logo used as the avatar for the site's own account, as well as different logo designs/interpretations used for promotional artwork & t-shirts.

Keeping to it's namesake, the site uses a primarily red & grey based colour palette, with blue and red highlights for links, in a straightforward style and down to earth style. By keeping the navigation as plain text links, the pages have plenty of clear space and help to keep the focus on the artwork or articles on each page.

Searching for a specific type of product is easy with clearly defined categories based on the 'tags' artists apply to their work on upload. The plain text links show clear the hierarchy of sections and allow the user to narrow down the criteria to find exactly what they are looking for - or to simply browse the numerous categories of artwork and see what's out there.

Geek >

Geek > Star Wars

The About Us page makes use of quirky imagery and bold type headings that reference hand-crafted collage/cut & paste graphics. A red text box with bubble watermarks to highlight dynamic/changing text. Small speech bubble icons next to the links are cute symbols indicating the type of article that the links lead to (blog). The quirky & fun graphics & type carry through to articles about the team, with the imagery and text informal and friendly, even 'taking the piss' out of themselves.

The site also uses illustrations as a way of providing information. Realistic style illustrations throughout the site represent types of artwork as well as the different styles of t-shirts and products available. The standardised "models" wearing the t-shirts are also a way to put the focus onto the actual artwork, keeping visual distractions to a minimum.

Communicating with members

The language used throughout the site has been "designed" to portray the personality of the team behind the business. Down to earth, straightforward, and friendly text clearly instructs the user how to go about signing up, uploading artwork and buying products. There are numerous pages and articles detailing the RedBubble objectives, the team behind the site as well as opinion pieces written by staff for the benefit of the community. Every article in the blog has commenting enabled so community members (users) can give feedback. This shows a desire for openness and a respect for members by the RedBubble team. Regular blog articles (such as the Weekly Wrap) and 'Featured' items give frequent praise to the members - fostering a friendly relationship between users and the RedBubble personality, eg:

"With the risk of sounding like a broken record, we’ll say it again. You’re really are an impressive bunch! We love compiling the wrap each week but it often takes longer than planned as we’re easily distracted by the great things we find in your journals."

and:

"We’re a spot for positive encouragement and feedback, somewhere to display work, admire work and talk about work. We’re into discussion, learning and collaboration and getting lots of people smiling."

There is even an inspirational piece of artwork available for purchase that sums up the values and goals of the site:

Design contributing to the user experience

All the design elements, graphics, colours and language have been specifically used to position RedBubble as a no-fuss, straightforward, accessible and functional service. Although it can be argued that visual design is primarily used to make sites look 'pretty' or 'appealing' there is no doubt in my mind that the visual design has a huge impact on the actual experience a user has on the site. By maintaining a clean, easily navigatable layout, the user can quickly find what they are looking for without any hassles - whether it be instructions on how to upload work or to buy a cartoon style t-shirt featuring Super Mario or the Ghostbusters. Plus, the more pleasant the initial experience is, the more likely users are going to return to the site later on!

Analysing a New Environment

Redbubble is an online marketplace/community for creatively inclined people to sell their art to the general public. Originally based in Australia, the site has been running since early 2007. It started out as an idea to bring on-demand printing to Australians - originally focussed on custom t-shirt printing, and eventually moving into calendars, cards, stickers and more.

The process

Landing on the Redbubble home page - www.redbubble.com - it's obvious that the site values the artwork of it's thousands of members. A large, changing main image of selected artwork takes centre stage, with links to the main categories underneath. There are links to Explore, Shop, Community, Login, Signup etc to help navigate to specific parts of the environment.

New members can sign up with a simple form to get them started. Unlike many other sign up forms, the RB form has only 5 fields to complete, plus a security image/text box. After that, users can set up their accounts as buyers or sellers (or both). Adding an avatar, basic details and a brief description about yourself, connecting to facebook and inputting tax details for sellers is all relatively straightforward. Every step is explained in language easy to understand for the average person - not too technical, but not over simplified either.

Once an designer/artist has set up their account the steps to upload artwork is very straightforward. A bright red button saying "ADD YOUR WORK" appears on the main screen of their RB account. From there, they select what type of work they want to upload - art & photography; t-shirts, hoodies & stickers; calendars; writing; or journals. On selecting t-shirts, a new screen reveals 2 link buttons - a template with instructions on setting up the artwork, and the "fancy uploader" link to select the file.

The next screen allows the user to put in the details of their work - title, description, tags (for organising), privacy options, what kind of products the art is for (t-shirts, kids clothes, or stickers), colour options, default style & colour (for display), print location and markup. Then, all the artist has to do it click 'save & publish' and the t-shirt/sticker is ready on the RB website for purchasing!

The feel

Overall, the whole Redbubble site is very 'basic' and easy to use. The processes for signing up and submitting artwork is very straightforward, and explained along the way with easy to follow instructions and links to further information when available. The language is easy to understand - not overly technical - and maintains a friendly tone of voice that relates to the individual user like a one-on-one conversation, informal 'peer' style.

The design of the site is uncluttered, leaving the artwork to speak for itself. The amount of information on each page is kept to a minimum, making it easy to find specific links or sections on a page, yet the pages never seem bare or lacking. Navigation between pages is simple and easy to follow. The process of uploading artwork for sale is so easy, no wonder there are thousands of artists using the site to sell their work.

The experience

Using Redbubble is relatively similar to other social network/sharing websites. The process of uploading artwork is very much like uploading photos to Flickr or Facebook, just with different information added onto the image. Instead of tagging people or putting in camera data, there is product options, pricing markups, colour variations etc. The options when uploading images doesn't overwhelm or overload.

Because there are similarities in data uploading & management between Redbubble and image sharing sites, users are likely to be familiar with the process of uploading images, and therefore not intimidated by it. The straightforward, instructional language gives all the details without overloading.

Overall, Redbubble is a successful, functional application/website making it easy for artists and designers to have their work seen and bought by people the world over.