Freeflow Art Series

Overview

For the past few years I have challenged myself to stay creative. I've been creating 1 digital art piece daily and sharing it on a gallery website that I made with Laravel and Stripe.

This project is special to me because I am revisiting the reason I got into Graphic Design and the Creative Arts in the first place...to have fun. I call these pieces "freeflows" as they are literally free flow streams of thought and action put to a canvas.

The series is updated on https://freeflow.me

The Storefront

In order to highlight the artwork, I designed the storefront to be minimal and with clear call to actions. Potential customers can download any piece as a wallpaper for free, or decide to purchase a 12x12in or 24x24in Lustre Finish Print.

Convenience & Piece of Mind

Each piece is designed using whatever technique I felt like employing at the time. Some are generative pieces that are built in Processing, some vector, and others purely Photoshop mashups.

But, all have a few things in common, they are saved as 24x24in @ 300dpi PSD files, a wallpaper size, and shared via social media.

I created a few Photoshop actions to quickly reproduce my process every day and save precious time.

The Custom Backend

I wrote a custom PHP backend using Laravel that integrates with Stripe to facilitate the sale of my art through an e-commerce shop. I went this route after doing some research in the space of ecommerce systems. They were all overkill or cost a monthly subscription to run, and since this would only house my work I figured a custom solution would save me time and money in the long run.

Freeflow has been running for ~6 years with minimal maintenance ever since. A true testament to Laravel!

Ecommerce

The backend system submits each order to Stripe, where I get a notification that a new sale was made. Upon successful transaction the order is prepared with AdoramaPix (now known as Printique) where they handle print fulfillment and shipping to the customer. The entire process is automated.

Conclusion

This is the type of project where I get to learn new things, and exercise both my creative and technical muscles while building something actually useful.

Edit 2020:

I'm in the midst of productizing Freeflow so that others interested in doing dailies have a cheap, simple, and secure way for showcasing and selling their work online with full ownership.