Vault
Series A | Design Consultant
Vault is a platform for artists to share unreleased music and exclusive drops with fans. I was brought in to increase artist engagement and accelerate product → design → engineering loops.
Artists used Vault during album launches and tours, but engagement between campaigns was low. The product worked; adoption wasn’t the issue. The opportunity was to spark anticipation, fan energy, and social proof—transforming Vault from a campaign-only tool into a daily habit for artists and fans alike.
I ran a focused research sprint: product review, Mixpanel analytics, and internal documentation. Drop creation was intuitive, adoption looked solid, but ~50% of fans dropped off at login. Artist flows had no real friction. The gap was motivational, not functional.
I led a FigJam sprint using a Dungeons & Dragons inspired framework to spark unconventional thinking. Clearing out bad ideas usually makes room for good ones. Even though I keep creative AI usage minimal, I ran my doc through an LLM to see what bubbled up — most ideas were ridiculous, but one was worth workshopping.
I shared the brainstorm with stakeholders for async feedback and dot-voting. Three concepts rose to the top:
- Collective Unlocking
- fans unlock a drop together, turning it into an event
- Leak-for-Follow
- fans trade a follow for access
- Social Proof
- show fans who else unlocked the drop
Collective Unlocking turns drops into mini fan-driven events. Artists set a threshold, share the link, and watch the progress bar fill. Fans request access, track the momentum, and celebrate together when the drop unlocks.
It gives artists an emotional payoff, gives fans a reason to come back, and gives Vault a repeatable mechanic for engagement spikes between campaigns.
Close collaboration with engineering made the ideation → prototype loop fast and fun. Componentizing the design system let us test multiple directions quickly, and live animations helped the team feel the energy behind the concepts.
Collective Unlocking became a leading direction for future engagement features and gave the team a clear blueprint for designing social momentum. This project was short, but it showed how even small, playful mechanics can reshape fan behavior.