Vasari

Vasari — digital art platform
Context:

Vasari is a digital platform designed to authenticate, structure, document, and distribute visual art — enabling artists, galleries, and collectors to manage artworks, preserve provenance.

Request:

Designing a structured digital system for art market — from concept to scalable product

Country:

Norway

My Role:
Lead Product Designer Uniquely positioned at the intersection of product design and art history (MSc, Theory and History of Art). Led UX strategy, Architecture, Design, Engineering collaboration.

Challenge

Manual fragmented processes to store and document artist's work, leading to data loss and gaps in historical records.

Impersonation, misattribution, and forgery creating a lack of transparency and security for collectors and institutions.

Process

1 /

discovery & thinking workshop

Conducted 2 workshops with stakeholders to understand the industry context and define the product vision.

Covered:

  • user groups (artists, galleries, collectors)
  • their goals
  • complexity of relationships
  • key opportunities
Discovery and thinking workshop
2 /

user research

After defining the initial vision, conducted a series of user sessions to validate hypotheses and uncover insights.

Focused on:

  • user needs and goals across groups
  • key pain points
  • opportunity areas

Insights were synthesised and translated into the product scope.

User research sessions
3 /

UX strategy & system design

Defined product structure and system logic, including entity model, user roles and permissions, and core interaction flows.

Aligned stakeholders on product scope, priorities, and delivery roadmap.

Established a foundation for scalable, consistent product development.

UX strategy and system design

User Interface

4 /

design system

To support consistency and scalability, I developed a structured design system built on tokens, reusable components, and variables.

The system defines typography, color, spacing, and interaction patterns, ensuring a unified visual language across the product.

Design system components

visual direction

Black-and-white palette with minimal use of color, it reflects that the artwork itself must remain the primary focus.

The goal was to create a sense of quiet sophistication. Aligned with the expectations of collectors, galleries, and institutions who value aesthetic, timeless, refined approach.

Vasari — visual direction mockup
Vasari — artist profile
Vasari — artworks view
Vasari — artwork detail
Vasari — exhibitions
Vasari — new exhibition
Vasari — management
Vasari — access screen
Vasari — error state
Vasari — artwork spread

Solution

Research revealed key challenges: fragmented manual documentation, and lack of trust driven by impersonation, misattribution, and forgery.

The solution was designed to address these issues across:

identification, attribution, authenticity, and data management.

1 /

Credible Identification

Introduced a secure onboarding flow combining legal document submission and face verification to ensure trusted user identity.

Credible identification — onboarding
2 /

Accurate Attribution

Designed a structured attribution model linking artworks to verified artists, provenance chains, and ownership histories — making the record trustworthy and dispute-resistant.

Accurate attribution — provenance chain
3 /

Artwork Authenticity

Designed a reliable artwork database allowing users to validate authenticity and identify forgeries, copies, or stylistic imitations.

Artwork authenticity — certificate screen
4 /

Simplified Data Management

Streamlined documentation by enabling bulk uploads from analog and digital sources. The system automatically parses and maps data to structured fields, reducing manual input to minimal corrections.

Data management — bulk upload interface
5 /

AI-assisted Documentation

Eliminated repetitive manual entry by allowing users to upload exhibition photos, with AI extracting and generating structured artwork data.

AI-assisted documentation

Results

Timeline:

12 months

Vasari is currently in pre-launch phase. The design foundation, architecture, and investor materials were completed and used for fundraising.

Team:

Solo Product Designer (end-to-end ownership)

Impact:

Research:

  • 16 user sessions across 3 groups — 8 artists, 4 galleries, 4 collectors
  • Stakeholder alignment sessions at every product milestone

Design output:

  • 3 user types defined with full persona and journey documentation
  • 30+ end-to-end user flows designed and validated
  • Complete design system built from zero — tokens, components, variables, interaction patterns
  • Full product architecture and UX strategy delivered

Business impact:

  • 10 investor pitch decks produced using design deliverables as primary material
  • Design foundation established for fundraising and pre-launch development
  • Design library introduced to engineering team estimated to reduce component development time by ~30% (based on sprint velocity improvements during collaboration)
Vasari sits at the intersection of two worlds I know deeply — product design and art history. The key insight was the resistance of the art market to digital tools, because of trust and security. This made the core design challenge: to make something the art world would believe in, and I believe we achieved that.
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