Canvas

Our contribution to Tokyo’s creative scene

We built Canvas as an online network for Tokyo's creative community. It serves as a platform where professional and amateur creatives can showcase their skills, establish new connections, and discover work opportunities. In addition, we organize offline events to foster a vibrant offline community.

The results of Canvas have been impactful and inspiring. Numerous creatives on the platform have reported successful connections with clients, secured job opportunities, hired employees, and formed friendships. Additionally, some individuals have utilized Canvas as a springboard to launch their own events.

Since its inception in 2015, Canvas has attracted almost ten thousand users, reflecting its growing significance and influence in Tokyo's creative ecosystem.

The research and
design process

Being a part of the local creative scene for many years, our team already had a strong understanding of the needs, struggles, abilities, and lifestyles of many of Tokyo’s professional and amateur creatives. This was the foundation for the vision of Canvas.

Before committing to build the service, we used the skills and experience we’d built through years of design research consulting for clients to ensure there was demand for our core concept.

Once we were confident that a product like Canvas should exist, we used a typical build-measure-learn cycle to progressively release public prototypes to our growing early userbase, enabling us gather behavioural metrics that proved the product deserved continued investment of resources, and insights that we used to inform our product roadmap.

- Kohei Okada Photographer
  Part of Moscow
- dilara ozden Web / Mobile Designer
  Girl Riot
- Erica Ward Artist
  願い事の歪 Wishes’ distortion
- Hengtee Lim Writer
  In Tokyo, Roasting Coffee Masterfully At Age One Hundred
  As I slowly pieced this article together for Sprudge.com, I realized that what interests me about kissaten culture is what interests me about Japan and Tokyo in general - its the clash and harmony of the contemporary and the traditional.
  
  In that sense, the article is something of a meditation on why we should value the past, and treasure the experiences that give us such clear views of it; in its own way, the kissaten is a kind of time machine.
- Chris Mollison Photographer
  Atlantian
- Francisco Martinez Architect
  Perchero chaparro / Hats rack
- Andrew Browne Artist
  Contemporary Idols #1
- Rui Yamashita Illustrator
  Kingdom of the Cheetas
- Vitor Santos Web / Mobile Designer
  Drawing Weird Stuff 3
- Steven Herman Filmmaker
  Music Video - Chuwon Chuwon by Sayulee

A selection of creations submitted by Creatives on Canvas

Web development

Canvas is built on tried and true technology: Ruby on Rails running on a Heroku Pipelines infrastructure, with Amazon AWS S3 content storage.

This technology stack allowed us to quickly prototype and release a variety of common social media platform functionality, including:

User account registration
Public profile publishing
A powerful creation editing tool
A news feed
Creative discovery and search
An user-submitted events calendar
Email notifications with user-selectable setting
Integrations with Facebook, Meetup, and other
A weekly, automated email digest newsletter
Company registration and job posting
A public discussion board

Ongoing growth

We're happy to see Canvas continuing to provide value to its users, and its steady organic growth thanks to word-of-mouth referrals and natural discovery via search engines.

- "I met a great design-agency client through Canvas. Writing often seems like an afterthought on websites and the like, so it's gratifying to find someone who values the role of an experienced copywriter in shaping and conveying a client's message."
  
  Robb Satterwhite Photographer
- "Canvas has been great for finding the kind of creatives we want - those who are excited to join a small team and build new app experiences, not just pad a resume."
  
  Benjamin Watanabe Product designer
- "Canvas has been good for us to find creative talent for our projects. We’ve hired both full-time and and project-based folks through Canvas (writers, photographers, and illustrators) and we’ve been happy with the quality of work and of the people themselves."
  
  Michael Keferl Entrepreneur
- "Finding work as a freelance creator can be a difficult task. Canvas has proved to be a very valuable tool that has helped me make several valuable connections, including my current biggest client."
  
  Said Karlsson Photographer