The Capstone Project course is part of the Masters of Design (MDes) at The University of Auckland (UoA), which asks students to critically investigate a specific contemporary issue in design or an issue that would benefit from an advanced design-based solution. Throughout this semester, I was asked to develop a project and document the process of the underlying problem. I had the freedom to choose a topic that interested me. However, it had to be within the theme that was presented to us:

How might we? Design better financial systems, products, and services for the people of Aotearoa?

I had the flexibility to make this project entirely self-directed, as there was no direct client, and I had freelanced most of the project. Research artifacts and prototypes were produced by me. I hope that these ideas can be built upon in the future as a start-up with future iterations. The project I worked on was designing a music NFT marketplace, which aimed to solve my research question ‘How can a digital platform add value to popular music offerings?’. I used a double diamond methodology while using prototypes as the primary research tool to gain further insights.

The Outcome

slice is a music NFT marketplace that aims to add exclusivity within the digital music space. My goal is for musicians to release their unreleased tracks on this platform and build a community through this unreleased music. Musicians have the opportunity to sell their music as an NFT, where their NFTs have certain perks when purchased. Whether it be VIP tickets, merchandise, first access to NFT drops, or anything that entices the collector.