kAIros Generative Art and NFT Creation Platform
CLIENT
PRODUCT
PROTOTYPE
VIEW THE PROTOTYPE IN NEW TAB
(or click below to explore the embedded prototype)
CHALLENGE
Build an engaged community that connects around using Symbol blockchain to create, share, sell, and buy NFTs.
SOLUTION
One of the challenges with building a double-ended marketplace is you need to get both creators and buyers to the party at the same time. As part of the solution to this problem, I decided to address the creator side of the marketplace.
Preliminary Research
Before considering a product, I conducted top-level field research through casual yet structured interviews with creators in my network in the New York and LA art scenes. I spoke with Patrick Amadon, a successful Glitch artist rising up in the NFT world who was recently accepted to the exclusive SuperRare NFT marketplace. I talked to Matt Conboy, the co-founder of Death By Audio in Brooklyn, with deep ties to the artist and music scene in New York and beyond.
Insights
Their insights, along with others, made it clear to me that Symbol would not be able to attract established creators who would demand upfront money for their involvement which was outside my budget. It was also clear that we needed to avoid populating our marketplace with poor content that can create a sea of noise, as seen on OpenSea and, indirectly, streaming platforms. A critical takeaway from the interviews was that creators are not moved by empty platitudes that speak to how cool the platform is or that it is giving back to the artist community. Creators want a platform that will help them sustain their art careers. With what I gathered from my initial research, we would best focus on creators that have proven talent and are not yet established. To gain their interest and retain their engagement, we would need to build tools that offer greater utility and economic opportunities than other platforms.
Ideation
I now had a clear idea of the segment of creators we needed to attract. It was time to take a step back and look at the larger ecosystem. I drafted a Strategy Deck (OPEN) for internal presentation to further the conversation and align our teams and stakeholders.
PROCESS
USER PROFILES
User #1
Amature photographer or artist interested in easy, fun ways to create “found” AI art using their photographs or sketches and mint NFTs with as few screens and button clicks as possible.
This user has no graphic design experience or formal art training. The use of mobile apps and on-demand services has conditioned them to have a short attention span and an expectation of intuitive usability.
The Goal
Provide these users with something extra that other common apps do not (AI, high-quality photo effects, etc.) as well as a simplified process for minting their own NFTs.
Needs
- Easy to use UI
- Guidance toward good decisions
- Instant gratification (short process)
User #2
Graphic artists, visual designers, and other creative professionals are good at their job because they love to be creative. These users will be attracted to the platform for the attractive new prospect of AI-assisted art creation. But they will become frustrated and bored if they are not offered enough flexibility and tools to produce the desired results or can only produce things they could create in Photoshop by themselves.
These users may not be familiar with minting NFTs or selling them, but the simple process we offer may be enough to attract them to the platform. Once these users interact with the platform, we must keep their attention by offering high-quality design tools and AI that produce something that adds to their work or inspires them.
The Goal
Provide these users with exciting avenues to explore with AI settings and editing tools that will allow them to exercise some control over the final product.
Needs
- Good AI that adds to their creativity beyond what a simple filter or mobile photo app can do
- Ability to edit and add to the work after the initial AI creations
User #3
Established NFT artists are the ones that will bring people to the platform. We will gain their interest and support by offering them fast and fun ways to create new sets of artwork, or at least a way to get new ideas to inspire their work. Like User #2 (Bob), these users require high-quality output and useful, exciting tools to keep them interested.
The Goal
Offer these users tools that will help them in their work process. Understand what will help them and offer it under the same roof as a place to mint.
Needs
- The same as users 1 and 2 with the ability to streamline their work process and creative process
MARKET COMPETITION
FREE MOBILE APPS
There are a lot of free mobile apps that can do cool stuff with photos. They offer less flexibility than professional tools but often yield fantastic results with only a few clicks and automated processes.
PROFESSIONAL CREATIVE SOFTWARE
Photoshop, Illustrator, Figma, Procreate, and other professional artist tools have abundant access now that they are all affordable and cloud-based.
OTHER NFT PLATFORMS
There are plenty of places where people can mint NFTs.
DIRECT COMPETITORS
INDIRECT COMPETITORS
AI SERVICES
DIFFERENTIATORS
HOW WE BEAT THE COMPETITION AND MEET OUR USERS WITH A UNIQUE, DELIGHTFUL PRODUCT
EASILY MINT NFTS
We make the process easier and faster than anyone else. The UI must be so simple that our mothers could start minting NFTs.
AI CAPABILITIES
The AI should create consistently good, unique, compelling, and compelling results.
TOKENIZE YOUR AI ASSISTANT
We can offer the ability to create a personality for your AI both visually and within its unique settings. This can become an asset people like to collect or trade as much as the NFTs they create with their AI.
FUN AND EASY-TO-USE DESIGN TOOLS
We aren’t trying to create a fully customizable graphic design suite here. Still, we do need to offer advanced users enough flexibility to get the results they find interesting.
EXAMPLES OF AI GENERATIVE ART
REFERENCE SITES
ART BLOCKS
DEEP DREAM
Voila
BORED HUMANS
PLAYFORM
AUTOGLYPHS
DEEP ART
GO ART
NVIDIA CANVAS
NIGHT CAFE
NOARTIST
RUNWAY
ART CREATOR
REFERENCE
DEFINITIONS
AttnGAN (Attentional Generative Adversarial Networks)
It turns descriptive text into synthesized images.
GAN (Generative Adversarial Network)
GANs are the main tools of AI artists today. GAN consists — and this is Ian’s ingenious idea — of two neural networks — a generator and a discriminator, which in the generator’s case generates an image, and in the discriminator’s case, decides whether the image is close to or distant from the expected effect, and then decides on the generated output, which the end user sees as the GAN’s final result.
YOLO (You Only Look Once)
An algorithm that recognizes objects in an image in real-time.