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70,000+
Photos Uploaded in first 5 months
50,000
Users during beta launch
3+
Minutes of Interaction

Project

Thematic
Visual Storytelling Platform

Services Used

Creative Direction
Visual Design
User Experience

Several years ago, we were on the cusp of a new web format that was rapidly becoming popular. As photography enthusiasts, we knew we had something meaningful.

The Challenge

There are not great ways to share large photographs or photo albums without shitty compression and terrible carousels. Thematic aimed to change that by allowing users to upload full browser width photos with the ability to add captions over the photos and editable panels to tell a complete story. And because that nut wasn’t hard enough to crack we also made it responsive so that it was supported on both desktop and mobile.

Creating a digital “Mid Format”

We worked with the Storia team to evaluate their current app and define and design a more comprehensive, easy to use experience that kept parents, teachers and kids more engaged and in control. Our solution provided better usability, easier management of accounts and greter personalization for children.

Short Format

Short format indicates content that is immediately consumed in short interactions. This content is usually generated at a high cadence is not evergreen, and has a short shelf life.

Mid Format

Mid-Format is a content format that lies between the instantaneous content of an Instagram and the permanence and content depth of a medium of Tumblr or Medium.

Thematic’s mid format of content is focused on visuals and storytelling via images and thoughtful captions. Galleries and slideshows fall into this category.

Long Format

Long format indicates content that is crafted, curated and generally results in longer interactions. Bloggers, brands and content publishers fall into this category. Long form content is generally created at a slower cadence and has a longer shelf life.

We referred to our platform as mid-format. Not as short and brief as a Twitter or Snapchat, but not as long as a Youtube or Vimeo.
This in between length of story telling with parallax and captions allowed users to share stories through imagery in a way that hadn’t been seen before.

Defining the Interaction Model

We kept it simple, because no one wants to use a difficult to use product.

Upload

Add Copy

Publish

Upload

Add Copy

Publish

Consume

We lowered the barrier to entry and made it easy to start.

Thematic Homepage

We created an easy to use feature set that allowed users to create a story

Showing how you can edit your text on Thematic

We created an easy to use feature set that allowed users to create visual stories.

These pages shown are just a subset of the full functionality of the platform. We used agile and iterative methodologies along with an MVP approach to get the most important features out first. By listening to the feedback from our users, we were able to build a platform that was used accross the world and on every continent except for Anartica.

Thematic was used accross the world by hundreds of thousands of users.

Traction & Attention

As the platform continued to evolve we had a few great brands creating stories including Red Bull, Nautica, Spotify and the Wharton Business School among others. We used these established brands as a way to encourage both Consumer and Business users to get on board!

Our work was also written about up by several tech blogs and industry award sites.

Are you looking for a creative way to share a high-impact visual narrative? Say hello to Thematic, a Web app that emphasizes our presentation’s visuals.

So many startups claim to “change how you share photos online”. Yet they all deliver the same old mosaic of thumbnails and mess of push notifications.

Thematic, however, really comes through. Take our word for it ( we’ve seen ‘em all): This one’s different.

Now You Can “Snowfall” Everything in Your Life

The power of parallax scrolling is yours! Use it wisely. With Thematic, a web app in early beta, you can upload photos and text, which are automatically presented in full screen, and given a pinch of “snowfall” magic.

Storytelling at it’s finest

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