And here’s a selection of work that showcases my broad skill set in user experience, interaction design, content development, visual design and programming!
03
Chalet Sessions
Content strategy and stakeholder management
A client project carried out for TCS Association as Lead Content Producer that involved web and social media content production.
Team Leading, Video Production & Motion Design
Section overview
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The brief
This project stemmed from its founders’ familiarity with the struggles of musicians within the Swiss music industry. Their goal was to create a solution that could help local artists reach an audience in a small and highly fragmented country/industry.
The client was
The Chalet Sessions Association and its members.
The client needed
An all in one platform to find and boost local musicians.
A CMS that can accommodate this content.
Content for all touch-points (web and social).
Multilingual content.
The users were
Swiss musicians.
Swiss radio/television.
Swiss music venue bookers.
Swiss music lovers/listeners.
Supporters of local talent.
The users needed
Musicians:
To be discovered by listeners and bookers in one place.
A way to unify a fragmented industry (one-stop-shop).
Listeners:
To be able to discover and follow their local musicians.
To be able to listen to a curated selection of the best music without having to put effort in research.
Bookers:
To be able to see musicians’ performance before booking.
To be able to use the content for promotional material.
Overall:
A simple and usable website structure that facilitated discovering artists.
Presence on all social platforms to receive content with the least effort To be able to learn about artists, their background and their upcoming gigs.
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The team
The project brought together a team of photographers, videographers, sound recorders, radio/television producers, and music lovers.
My role
I directed and ran the content production department for this project. I produced copy, video, motion and graphics. The content was produced for the web and social platforms.
I also created the structure and layout for the web-based platform to accommodate the content.
I produced and edited copy in both English and French.
My roles throughout the project included:
Communication - storytelling - copywriting
Content design - content production - content writing
User research - prototyping - interaction design - service design
Media production - motion design - graphic design - audio production - frontend modifications
Web standards - media standards for web and social media
Team effort - collaboration - team leading
The client’s role
Definition of project’s general direction and requirements.
Feedback on content.
Allocation of funds.
The team’s role
To provide me with support in content production.
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The solutions
The requirements and needs were met by
Setting up web and social platforms.
Creating a cohesive visual style and written tone.
Creating content that represents the diverse cultural aspects of the country.
Creating content in multiple languages for inclusivity.
Creating content in the form of video, image and copy for use by client, artists and promoters.
The tools used were
Interviewing experts.
Interviewing users.
Prototyping and testing content (using stats and engagement metrics).
Storytelling.
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The challenges
Some difficulties and obstacles encountered were
Working on a really tight budget.
Working with a really heavy workload.
Overcoming the linguistic fragmentation of the country and industry.
Being financially viable in an industry notoriously difficult to fund - music.
Winning over stakeholders with traditionalist perspectives.
Getting through gatekeepers with traditionalist ideals and a fear of change.
Having difficulty in bringing about industry-wide gains and success beyond activity and views.
Let’s focus on one
Overcoming linguistic fragmentation of the country and industry
Music is a particularly difficult industry. The market is highly saturated, and the profit margins are very slim. This is especially true for small and independent players.
This issue is compounded by the size and fragmentation of the Swiss industry. Switzerland is a small country with four national languages. Each language is from a region of the country that is not only economically and culturally distinct, but sometimes even geographically separated from the others by mountains.
To top that off, each of these regions shares a border with a much bigger country that speaks its language (France, Germany, and Italy), so their media is flooded with content from their respective neighbours. These larger countries completely overshadow the Swiss music industry in size, making it even more of an insurmountable challenge for an artist “break-in”.
Because of these challenges, it proved difficult to translate interest in the artists into a substantial benefit for them and into profit for the client.
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The takeaways and results
The successes were
The project had a cult following and garnered lots of interest from musicians and news outlets.
The artists were able to get followings and bookings as a result of our platform and its content. Bookers shared and used our content to promote artist they booked. Content was actively shared and interacted with.
In an ideal world I would…
Readdress the initial requirements given by the client for this project. I would shift the focus from the musicians and industry gatekeepers to the real end user, the listener. The value to the listener would likely temper any reluctance to change from gatekeepers as well.
Look into reworking the content, service and business model to produce better sources of revenue.
Investigate pushing the product beyond content production. This would be done by studying the systemic pain-points in the industry more closely to produce more practical solutions to the problems.
