aljumaine / vortexcollective

vortexcollective

The purpose of this readme file is to document the obejectives of this project.

Defining the problem:

The discovery stage of the product originated from my concern about what challenges black artists that want to join the NFT space experience. In late 2021, NFTs became a major player with respect to funding and support an artists design projects and career. Without the need for a major gallery or an antiquated granting system.

Why this problem matters:

Through my experience from working in tech, I noticed immediately the lack of market places and online communitys that centre the design work for the black diaspora. I saw this as an opportunity to deep dive into what consumers particulary need and a seamless way to find artwork made by black designers and NFT artists in the NFT/ web3 space.

**Origin of the story: **

In 2020 I noticed there was a large investment in NFTs and web3. After spending a lot of time joining communities I quickly realized most of the NFT space is dominated by white tech bro’s that already make up the majority of the tech space.

I wanted to create a space within the NFT / web3 space for black NFT artists to showcase and mint their NFTs for their community.

This case study is aimed to uncover users needs to fulfill a demand for Black NFT art and for the artists to be supported for their innovative design work.

**Expert Interview: **

I was lucky enough to get an interview with a black Product Designer. The designer was able to provide an honest opinion on the objective of my project and brought to light some considerations that are important.

Changing in scope:

The most important aspect of market places would be their ability to handle legal claims that come up in connection to hacking events resulting in theft of NFT's. Take Open Sea's most recent lawsuit by Bored Ape Yacht club owners who lost their NFTs due to an exploit that existed in the sites code dating back months. The exploit was left unchanged allowing for unneccary theft to take place.

The second largest change in scope would be altering the project. I realized that it would be more important to secure funding via donations so that black folks could share their digital artwork and NFTs. Without having to peddle their work to consumers right now as NFT's are hot on the market. It would make more sense for the project to focus on finding a means of creating a network of care, learning resources in connection to digital art and eventually moving into the NFT space.

**Challenges: **

One of the most difficult challenges for me was understanding how to set up smart contracts correctly and then connecting with thme via solidity.

** How it works: ** This project was set up on the Etherium block chain as the options for setting up NFt's and smart contracts could be used in the future for other prpjects and intiatives.

When we click Donate on the form, it will set up a transaction to send funds to a specific account number on the block chain. This was completed using Javascript which is just an interaction layer above the CSS.

The main feature of this site is the form which is able to send funds using Javascript to a wallet on the Etherium block chain. When the user enters in a value and clicks ''Donate'' there is a javascript event which prevents the default function of sending the user to the next page like it woudl usually.