Drive fan engagement through the gamification of music
Creative direction, branding, social media, and UI/UX design
Studio Cadenza 2019–present
FanLabel is a gamified music platform providing music lovers with a deeply engaging experience in music, modeled after fantasy sports. Players can test their ability to pick hit songs, level up, and win competitions to prove that they know music. Players are incentivized to play and to win great prizes. Users might play FanLabel for music discovery, fun music challenges, and competition with friends. The task at hand with FanLabel has always been to deliver a great product, with clear direction, market it well, and deliver captivating and engaging contests that would be exciting to a user. So, how can we better understand our audience and their various personas? How can we gain new users, and provide an amazing experience to retain them? How can we constantly keep growing and improving?
I joined the Studio Cadenza team in 2019 as a graphic designer, a role that quickly evolved to encompass a wide range of responsibilities. My contributions began with graphic design tasks including Spotify playlist and podcast covers, organizing and creating in-app graphics, designing pitch decks for investor presentation, evergreen advertisements, structuring brand guidelines, and iOS app store images. I have worn every "hat," including even photographing MoPop 2022 on behalf the FanLabel team.
Since Studio Cadenza took on the FanLabel project, its visual identity has gone through many iterations and improvements. It’s color palette has always been bold and colorful, and using texture as a statement. Textures have ranged from paint splatter, paint swirl, and to mesh gradients over time. Though continuously evolving, the FanLabel brand will always be bold, colorful, and confident. For about one year, I designed and managed FanLabel’s Instagram page, whose style became chaotically energetic, displaying fun collages to keep music fans updated on the latest news, jokes and memes of the music industry, and app updates.
Though there is no other platform like FanLabel, the team has modeled the experience after well known fantasy sports apps such as FanDuel, Yahoo Fantasy Sports, Draft Kings, and ESPN Fantasy Sports. FanLabel allows users to sign songs to their fantasy record labels, based on stream count through all music streaming platforms. I have done research on our competitors, and found ways to meld the fantasy experience with music for our users and music fans. As part of the UI/UX process, I have also redesigned music challenge formats to improve clarity and experience, and visual improvements throughout the app.
FanLabel is constantly growing, and always working our next best step. As we come close to releasing the sixth version of the app, the brand grows, marketing grows, social media grows, and every step is constant improvement.
