elvinyl
A game-changing digital marketplace for vinyl enthusiasts
elvinyl is a one of a kind marketplace for people to buy and sell records. Born from the friendship of two enthusiasts, Jules Elvins and Rich Morton Jack, the product offers an immersive and intuitive solution for dedicated music lovers who know their Thelonious Monk from their Monk Higgins. At its heart, elvinyl is a hub for people who want more from their buying and selling experience of rare and collectable music.
For the record
We opened the project with a design sprint, and as an agency united by music, we were fascinated with this concept from day one. After the initial 5-day design sprint, we set to work on pulling together platform, tech and brand ideas. It became clear from the outset that the usability and identity had to resonate with the vibrant styles and well-designed interfaces that music fans have come to expect from modern tech.
Papa’s got a brand new brand
This project was highly anticipated by the entire design team. It was an exciting opportunity to bring together an ambitious visual identity that would appeal to the niche elvinyl audience. Our approach kicked off with a workshop to establish key goals and aspirations of the brand – positioning, personality and all that jazz. Gaining all of this insight upfront was key to our design direction.
Stop, collaborate and listen
During the brand workshop, high-level sketches began to take shape, and dozens of concepts adorned the studio walls, all with a variety of intricate, simple and hopeful ideas. With regular team check-ins, we identified front-runners to take forward. Collaborating with the elvinyl team, we carefully crafted a logomark that captures not just who they are and what they do, but helps to tell their story through a bold, confident identity.
A design for life
The name ‘elvinyl’ introduced a nicely balanced and ownable logotype, which we created using simple and consistent lines. The logomark comprises geometric shapes and negative space to create a minimalistic interpretation of a record sleeve. The brand elements combine to create a clean, bold and approachable feel, with the flexibility to work in print and online.
Shine a light
To help elvinyl move forward and succeed with their new visual identity, we created a brand guidelines book to document the various elements that make up the brand, from the logo and how it’s applied, through to the colours and fonts. The brands we create at Kyan are made to move and grow, and our guidelines offer enough flexibility to do so. This documentation carried through to Elvinyl’s website, and based on the brand guidelines, allowed us to produce a pattern library to clarify all of the styles needed to kickstart the build.
Audience participation
With no shortage of connections through Jules and Rich, we assembled a fair and balanced user testing team, from novice music collectors through to established record shop owners. The invaluable research gave us good insight into the tweaks and considerations we needed to make to the prototype before we entered our first production sprint.
The devil’s in the details
Unlike sites such as eBay where categories are broad and detail is minimal, elvinyl’s requirements delved deep into the many details that differentiate record releases from one another. This may be things like where it was pressed, the matrix number, unusual typos or subtle differences in track listings. All of this, whilst delivering clear usability on desktop, tablet and mobile devices.
Whole lotta love
With the site and app both accommodating multiple streams of information (not just for buyers, but for sellers too), this attention to detail would ultimately determine the legitimacy, transparency and accuracy of the listings on the site. The team even went as far as offering photography guidance to sellers, encouraging good quality and high-resolution images of key parts of the record.
Let’s get technical
elvinyl needed a robust solution to handle payments. We chose to use Paypal, a handler already trusted by millions, so that users could pay in different currencies from any location. The configuration was customised to split the buyer’s payment from the platform fee to maintain efficiency and speed. The product itself is built in Ruby on Rails with a Javascript front-end, utilising Elasticsearch – perfect for this size of product catalogue with so many variables.
Good vibrations
After a soft marketing launch, the elvinyl product is now live and has already celebrated its first stranger-to-stranger sale. With the help of Kyan, Jules and Rich have built out a software team to develop the product, which looks to go from strength-to-strength as more enthusiasts sign up for an unrivalled buying and selling experience. elvinyl is now well on the way to sparking a behavioural shift in how collectable music is bought and sold and shown the love and respect they deserve.
