Applied Design Thinking: Redefining Community Arts Programs

The Situation

I spent 1.5 years as a studio technician in what I lovingly dubbed “The Laboratory” at Artscape’s Launchpad, an incubator for creative entrepreneurs. The lab housed a VFX, photography, and sound recording studio. As a nonprofit arts organization, Artscape aimed to enable artists in the city to thrive. This was achieved through grant funded programs that provided affordable condos and studio workspaces, mentorship and educational programs.

At its peak, we served over 1,800 artists with access to studio space and equipment within a three-month time period.

Yet it wasn’t without its pain points. Nonprofits are often short on staff and resources.

This is where design thinking comes into play.

During my tenure as a studio technician I was attending school by night, studying to become a UX Designer. Hindsight is 20/20 but moving forward these are my key takeaways for community-led program development.

Research: Work Smarter, Not Harder

Launchpad had 3 types of studios at discounted rates for artists. To gain access to these rates users had to sign up for a $30 monthly membership fee. This was a barrier of entry to artists. I would conduct research to build a minimum of 3 personas to understand how to create value for members and in-turn, keep them engaged with our programs / product.

Interviews and field studies would be the primary method of research, as studio technicians (like myself) worked closely with members on their projects.

Personas across the studios might look like:

• Fashion & Textiles: Fashion designers, textile artists

• Electronics & Woodworking: The 3D printer prototyper, furniture designer

• Digital Media Lab: Musician, singer, portrait photographer, director/cinematographer

Here’s how persona insights could inform program strategy and development:

• Community Engagement

  • Reach: Find the best method to communicate with members. Eg. Gamers tend to be on Discord.

  • Build trust & encourage attendance: Insight into members’ most urgent or current challenges as creative entrepreneurs to develop impactful programming. With these challenges in mind, we can source industry professionals / experts within their areas of interest who have overcome similar business challenges.

• Address members’ pain points with efficient resource allocation

  • Define priorities of budget items and resources, based on the types of businesses members are running and the projects they are working on.

    • Digital Media Lab projects included fashion designers creating photos for look books, or musicians producing music videos. The priority would be post-production software and cameras.

    • At the electronics lab, projects included 3D printing prototypes. As such the priority would be 3D modelling / scanning software.

  • Member behaviours such as the time of the day they work on their projects. This is especially important to allocate staffing resources effectively at a nonprofit.

The biggest takeaway is to be purposeful with programming. At the end of the day the goal is to make $$$ by means of providing a solution to a target user. Yet if we get lost in the sauce and fixate solely on financial gains, we could overlook the needs of our community, leading to a lack of value creation and alienating them in the process. Every pillar should take us closer to alleviating a persona’s pain points.

Stakeholder Engagement: Quality over Quantity for Meaningful Impact

Often times investment in a program comes from an external stakeholder like Big Bank $, philanthropists, or private estates. What’s the motive? In the arts world, they want to reach a specific target user / audience that our company is uniquely positioned to serve.

That’s how a strategic partnership, like Backstage Pass, is born. The funder aimed to help artists in the performing arts who lost income due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Launchpad, with its rehearsal and creative studios was uniquely positioned to help these artists.

As the only studio technician on staff within the Digital Media Lab, I had bookings every single day of the month from February - March 2023. Days consisted of coordinating production logistics and on-site technical support across 3 studios. We served over 1,800 artists across the company. #NoDaysOff

Somedays I had to pinch myself, because I couldn’t believe that my job was to be with artists all day, creating in the studio. Yet the fact is, this workload was not sustainable with our staffing resources.

The biggest takeaway here is to make sure we seek insight from our internal stakeholders. This is especially important when we are defining the scope and roadmap of a project. It might mean scaling back, but it could also lead to iteration on alternative methods to satisfy stakeholder requirements. You just might be surprised at how much more impactful your program can be while making the most out of the tools your internal team has on deck.