Bringing collectors to artist studios

Art Visit connects Bay Area artists with art collectors through visits to their studios. The project started during COVID, when galleries and exhibitions were closed. It offered a more personal way to experience art and meet artists where they work.

Amanda Perry started the project with Design 86 founder Michal Sloboda. Amanda led artist outreach and organized the studio visits. She built relationships with artists and collectors. Design 86 built the website and the system behind it. We created artist profiles, photographed and wrote studio visit stories, and designed the event materials and online promotion.

The platform is built around searchable artist profiles. We used SEO to help people find artists by name and by their work. This was especially useful for older artists. Many had outdated websites that were hard to find online.

The identity was created with the artists. During studio visits, we asked artists to make logo marks for Art Visit. More than 20 marks became a rotating identity across the website and printed materials.

Each artist profile is shaped by the artist's work. This gives every artist a distinct visual space. We built a social media graphics generator into the artist backend. It combines artwork, colors, and logo marks to create an original visual for each event.

Art Visit features more than 100 artists and has organized 15 group studio visits across the Bay Area. Some visits led to artwork sales and direct relationships between artists and collectors.