While working at Tomatoshark, I designed an etsy like platform for music licensing. Music licensing is a process of granting rights to the use of copyrighted music for film, games, etc).
Background
TomatoShark was a disruptor in the music licensing industry. We gave musicians tools to license directly to the end buyer, and built an online marketplace with fresh, original music, limitless potential, and flexible purchasing options for buyers.
Opportunity
There's no easy way to get into music licensing for creators. If you're lucky enough to get a placement, it's not uncommon to get a bad deal. We saw an opportunity to provide safety, convenience, and guidance to both buyers and sellers in this industry.
This was my introduction to design. There was no designer on the team, so I fell into that roll in addition to my PM responsibilities. Over 2 years, I made a lot of mistakes, learned even more, and fell in love with design and product development.
I conducted constant research to uncover pain points in the industry, and developed solutions to the problems I found. Behind the basic marketplace tools we created was a flexible, equitable contract system, and a complex, yet easy to use algorithm that helped our sellers price out any licensing scenario (from large placements in major blockbuster films to simple wedding videos).
My Role
I handled design from initial ideation and validation to feature flows and layouts, then handed my work off to a visual designer to elevate the look and feel.
This included research, CX, UX, account tools, landing pages, and everything that goes into launching a web platform.
BASIC SITE OVERVIEW
Shoppers were were encouraged to begin their search as their first action on the site.
All songs could be easily previewed and licensed, with no need to create an account.
STREAMLINED CHECKOUT
We kept checkout within the license selection UI to keep it as streamlined as possible. No extra pages.
Research and testing led to a simple two tiered hierarchy for license options.
Shoppers ranged in experience, from first-time music licensers to professionals, so checkout process was made to be simple, educational, but also demonstrate our deep knowledge of music licensing to the user to establish trust.
SCREENS
Some day I’d like to update this page and write about the research -> design -> production process I had at TomatoShark, but for now I’ll just share some of the finished work.
About ME
My design process is built around understanding why. I've always enjoyed trying to understand things. I'm grateful to do it for a living.
I've been in product design since 2014. I have a background in AI, e-commerce, marketplaces, creative tools, cloud-based content, and 0-1 projects. I start each project by listening.
Most recently I served as a Senior Product Designer at Splice, helping people make better music.
I love donuts, baking bread, fashion, and damn good coffee.
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