Figure Fish 🐟

Figure Fish
TL;DR—I designed, built and launched a SaaS MTP in just over a month, and it is now being researched as a teaching tool for university fine art's education.

Relevant Links

Overview

Problem

During COVID-19, many universities across the US sent students home for remote education—art students included. One day, I heard of a drawing professor holding subjects up to a zoom camera (think apple, a mug, etc.) and setting their phone timer to mimic the in class experience of drawing references with timers. There was an immediate juxtaposition in my mind of this method, vs. the traditional in class methodologies others have experienced. Surely technology could bridge this gap.

Solution

I began research into potential solves for this problem with no avail. After speaking with various students, professional artists, and fine art's instructors, a digital replication of the in-class experience for learning to draw did not exist (to anyone's knowledge that I spoke to, at a minimum—indicating a market gap to be filled, regardless of a product's existence).

Enter, Figure Fish: a tool to help you improve your drawing skills by allowing you to easily create practice sessions, taking the pains out of organizing and completing your practice—all while mimicking much of the experience of learning to draw in a classroom setting.

A key feature of the paid version of the application is shareable, public links to sessions. A professor can create a session for their class, and share the link with their students to draw.

While the product was designed and built in right around one (1) month and was only launched publicly in early February of 2021 as a bare bones MVP, I am undergoing research with university fine art's educators to learn how this tool can evolve to suit the needs of instructors and students, and I have an ambitious roadmap planned thus far for continued feature development.

Core Technologies

  • React
  • Next.js
  • Firebase
  • TailwindCSS

Screen Previews (feat. dark mode 😉)

Home Screen

This screen is the main view while logged into the app. It provides a minimal UI for quickly managing your practice sessions and getting to the work that you want to do. This screen features client-side rendering, SWR by Vercel for revalidation, and more.

Session Creation

The screen below is the state a user will enter while creating a new session. Once a user uploads images, they are compressed on the client side prior uploading to object storage. For context and insight into intentionality with this decision: current optimizations in place allow for one (1) paid account to cover costs for ~8,000 free accounts worth of image storage.

During Drawing Session

The screen below is the "drawing" state of the application—while in a session, everything is hidden, to minimize distractions. The only things visible are the image being drawn, and a collapsible timer/controller. This controller is also fully draggable anywhere on the screen, as to ensure that the image being drawn will never be obstructed—regardless of aspect ratio. This screen is server-side rendered using unique URLs, helping to create an easily shareable URL system.

contact meviaemail

jared@jared.to

© 2021 Jared BrownIndianapolis, IN