Role
UX/UI Designer
Company
Palcos
Duration
2 months
Tools
Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Notion
Where local culture takes the stage.
Palcos was created to address the lack of a digital space representing Portuguese cultural diversity. It connects independent artists, cultural spaces, and local communities, making it easier to create, share, and discover events that represent the real and creative nature of the country.
Portugal has plenty of emerging artists, but it lacks a truly human and accessible platform that gives them space to publish their work and promote events.
Current applications are impersonal, just focused on large urban centers and mainstream events.
The result? Alternative artists remain invisible, and the general public misses out on the opportunity to discover culture outside the commercial circuit.
Problem statement
No platform promotes emerging artists in Portugal and connects them with new audiences. Current apps ignore smaller cities and alternative culture. This leaves small artists invisible and the audience that enjoys these events unnoticed.
Goal
Design a mobile application that empowers artists to share their art and promote their events, ensuring greater attention within the community, while helping the audience discover authentic cultural experiences beyond mainstream.
Understanding the cultural artists who create and those who keep culture alive.
The process began with an analysis of the cultural scene in Portugal, focusing on emerging artists and alternative audiences. To better understand their motivations and challenges, we conducted 30 interviews with emerging artists and people related to the consumption of alternative art.
At the same time, I benchmarked the platforms available on the market and those most used by Portuguese people. This exercise helped us understand interaction patterns already familiar to users, but also identify critical points and failures:
Overly crowded interfaces;
Too much focus on the mainstream;
Lack of local customization;
Human curation is practically non-existent.
This analysis also served as a guide for inspiration and differentiation.
Turning insights into ideas that matter
To determine what was essential to resolve the constraints already identified, we decided in advance to hold team brainstorming sessions, where we explored different possibilities to find a solution to the needs identified in the research.
The map helped us define the navigation hierarchy and understand where each feature made sense for users.
Four Design Principles
We realized that Palcos couldn't just be another cultural calendar. It needed to be human, accessible, and visually expressive, reflecting the alternative spirit of its users. And so, we decided to follow through with these four design principles.
Building a visual language that feels human, editorial and culturally close
Palcos was designed to ensure consistency, accessibility, and a visual tone aligned with the defined persona. The goal was to create something editorial, expressive, and human-oriented towards cultural magazines with personality, that reflected the authenticity of emerging artists and the audience's desire to discover new voices and artistic proposals outside the mainstream.
From structure to experience the shaping of Palcos
This phase was one of the most critical steps in the project, transforming findings into visual and interactive solutions.
The wireframes are organized into four main groups. Each set was developed and iterated based on usability tests and feedback from potential users:
Simplified search
Event and integrated ticketing
Event creation
Artist account
From concept to cultural impact
The final prototype is a result of insights gathered during research, guided by design principles, and completed with iterations of a cohesive and intuitive experience. The main user flows show how Palcos brings the public closer to alternative culture and gives emerging national artists the visibility they need.
Discover & Explore
Personalized discovery of alternative culture on a national level.
Users can browse featured events and by their own mood, rather than just the more standard categories.
The results shown are based on the current location, but users can change them to explore other cities.
A simple, editorial-style homepage that highlights local events and artists. Overly crowded interfaces;
Event detail & Buying a ticket
Trust, clarity, and ease before attending the event.
Complete event pages, including date, location, general information, and a map for easy navigation.
Easy to review ticket options before finalizing their order.
A simple, intuitive, and secure ticket purchasing process.
Artist account & Event creation
Features designed for emerging artists.
Artists can edit profiles, share media content, and interact with their community from their account.
A simple event creation form that can be created by the artists themselves or by an organizer, quickly set up with integrated ticketing.
A preview option that allows artists and organizers to see how their events appear to the general public.
What I found
Emerging artists continue to feel the lack of a space that truly represents them, away from the noise of mainstream platforms.
Alternative audiences want to discover authentic culture, created by people and outside of major urban centers.
Exploring by mood has proven to be a more emotional and intuitive way to connect artists and audiences.
Bringing profiles, events, and tickets together in one place simplifies the entire process of cultural discovery and sharing.
What I learned
The strongest design is the one that starts with people and keeps the human voice in every decision.
Turning insights into experience requires listening and a lot of iteration to achieve the best possible product.
Creating a clear structure does not mean losing visual expression, but rather giving it purpose.
The balance between form and function is what truly transforms an app into something with cultural impact.
