Chromad

Oliver Dipre
Tiggi Kempe

2024
Lead Product Designer

Chromad is a global platform that connects creative professionals with hosts offering spaces and studios for creatives to work remotely. Operating as part of the sharing economy, it allows creatives to rent and let dedicated workspaces globally. These spaces range from high-level professional studios to boutique offerings.

Chromad provides a solution for creative professionals such as producers, artists, photographers, podcasters, and content creators who often struggle to find affordable, dedicated workspaces while traveling.

  • An image of the Cultural Center.

    Search listing of all available studios

  • Creating a studio listing

  • Studio listing

  • User profile

  • Studio listing reviews

  • Listing filters

Designing a platform to empower creatives to work and create from anywhere

Creative professionals frequently encounter several issues when working away from home:

  1. Access and affordability

    • Professional spaces are expensive and often require long-term commitments.

  2. Language barriers

    • Communicating with hosts overseas can be challenging.

  3. Lack of rental assurance

    • Ensuring the safety of sensitive or expensive equipment during rentals is a major concern for studio hosts.

  4. Wasted resources

    • Many creatives have their own creative spaces at home that remain unused while they travel.

Current workarounds—such as advertising spaces on social media or Googling studios—involve time-consuming communications via phone calls and emails, often in foreign languages. The platform addresses cost concerns by enabling creatives to save money while traveling and earn money by hosting others, whilst providing rental assurances through their own insurance, Chrome Cover.

Chromad sought to eliminate these pain points and make the digital nomad lifestyle accessible to creative professionals.

Defining the 6 week project scope

We focused on delivering a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) with essential features while laying the groundwork for future iterations. The key activities included:

  1. Feature mapping

    • Collaborated with founders Oliver and Tiggi to map out features, including onboarding, search, bookings, payments and payouts, account management, host dashboard, customer support, and community.

    • Conducted a feature elaboration workshop to identify the flows and functionality for each feature, then prioritised them using the MSCW framework (Must, Should, Could, Won't have) to determine the MVP scope.

  2. Project planning

    • Developed a project plan to ensure all tasks aligned with the six-week timeline.

  3. Brand DNA workshop

    • Facilitated a workshop with the founders to solidify Chromad’s brand identity. The outcomes of the workshop informed all design decisions moving forward, ensuring consistency across the platform.

  4. Wireframes & user flows

    • Created detailed user flows for each feature, which were then elaborated into high-fidelity wireframes

    • Used a wireframe design system to rapidly prototype the platform’s features within a week. This approach allowed us to quickly test and refine the structure, focusing on intuitive navigation and functionality.

  5. Visual design

    • Developed a moodboard to explore design elements, including color schemes, typography, and layout styles.

    • Built on the results of the Brand DNA workshop to create a cohesive visual identity for the platform.

  • Six week project timeline

  • MVP feature list (must haves) and the V1 feature list (should & could haves)

The explorer meets the creator

To establish Chromad’s identity, I facilitated a Brand DNA workshop with the founders, focusing on:

  1. Vision, mission & purpose

    • Clarified the platform’s long-term goals and immediate objectives.

  2. Ideal customer profiles (ICP) and target personas

    • We narrowed the ideal customer profile to music professionals as the initial target for the MVP, with the view to expanding to other creative professionals in the future. Identified three primary target personas—Renters, Hosts, and Swappers—and detailed their needs and challenges.

  3. Unique selling proposition (USP)

    • Positioned Chromad against competitors by emphasising its creative-specific features.

  4. Brand archetype

    • Positioned Chromad between The Explorer and The Creator archetypes to reflect its adventurous and creative ethos.

  5. Visual identity

    • Discussed the brand’s look and feel, drawing inspiration from functionalism, Dieter Rams’ minimalist design principles and 1960s space-age aesthetics.

  • Brand archetype: The Explorer meets The Creator

  • Mission statement

  • Vision statement

  • Purpose

  • Aesthetic inspiration

  • Colour inspiration

  • Typography choices – Radis for headings and Untitled Sans for body copy

  • Comparing Chromad against it’s competitors

  • Target personas

Designing for the highly specific needs of music professionals

Using a wireframe design system, I drafted the platform’s features within a week. The design system enabled rapid prototyping and allowed for quick feedback from the founders. Key considerations included:

  1. Detailed filters for music professionals

    • Music professionals often have highly specific needs, such as studio types (e.g. for mastering or mixing) and equipment requirements. These nuances required careful categorisation.

  2. Clear Call-To-Action elements

    • Guiding users through the platform from search, filter, and booking spaces.

  3. Incorporating local recommendations

    • To enhance the user experience, we included host-provided recommendations for hotels, live venues, and dining, making the platform more than just a booking tool.

  • An image of the Cultural Center.

    A snippet of a user flow diagram demonstrating a pending booking request and the actions the studio host can take.

  • Wireframe of the studio listing

  • Wireframe of the booking screen

  • Wireframe of the user’s profile

  • Wireframe of the message inbox

Balancing functionality with a creative look and feel

Once the wireframes were finalised, I applied the visual design principles established earlier. Drawing from the minimalist and modern aesthetics of Dieter Rams, the interface was designed to:

  • Focus on typography as a key visual element, combining clean, legible fonts with bold, creative headings that conveyed energy and professionalism.

  • Use strategic pops of colour to guide users’ attention and highlight key actions, ensuring clarity and engagement without overwhelming the interface.

  • Maintain a consistent, inspiring design language that balanced functionality with creativity, reflecting the explorer and creator archetypes.

  • Ensure the platform’s layout and visuals aligned with the needs of busy creatives, delivering an intuitive, visually engaging user experience.

Search listing
Create a listing
Studio listing
Studio listing reviews
Studio filters
User profile
Account settings
Message inbox
Language selection

Scope creep

Working on Chromad presented the unique challenge of collaborating with first-time founders to define and deliver an MVP within a tight timeframe. One of the most significant hurdles was managing scope and ensuring the MVP remained streamlined.

The founders’ enthusiasm often led to requests for additional features, which risked bloating the MVP. Without a developer on the team to estimate build complexity, it was difficult to fully communicate the impact of these additions on the timeline and feasibility. Having a developer involved from the outset would have provided critical technical insights, helping to align expectations and prioritise features more effectively.

By focusing on the core needs of creative professionals and maintaining a strong brand vision, we were able to deliver a platform that met the project’s goals while laying a solid foundation for future growth. The experience underscored the importance of balancing creative ambition with practical constraints.