Introducing Craft Class: Stories of Creativity and Innovation

Welcome to "Craft Class," a new series where we spotlight the brilliant minds behind CRAFTSMAN+, their journeys, challenges, and the innovative solutions they bring to the digital creative space. This month, we're featuring Richard Stephens, VP of Product, who plays a pivotal role in steering CRAFTSMAN+’s product development towards excellence.

When making products that push the bounds of what’s available on the market, it can often feel like you and your team are walking across a bridge as you build it. This has been my experience over the last two years building both our new static ad creation platform, CANVAS, and our playable builder, PLAY.

As part of CRAFTSMAN+’s commitment to empowering creativity, both CANVAS and PLAY underwent extensive internal testing to meet the needs of both experienced designers and marketers just starting out. Our goal was to build a product that provided value to every member of a marketing team. After some trial and error, we built two simple yet powerful platforms that automate creative optimization and scale the design process, so that brands can focus on what truly matters: storytelling.

Here’s how we built them.

Building the Bridge as We Walked It: The Importance of Feedback

One of our key advantages at CRAFTSMAN+ is that we are both a creative agency and technology company. This means our design expertise is baked into the products we build. As a product team, we have a pool of ideal users—our own designers—that we can speak to about UI and features. Their insights, alongside market feedback from our customers, were essential in building CANVAS and PLAY.

[Image of an iterative product development cycle diagram]

For CANVAS, we built a first iteration after six months for our design team to try. This alpha testing allowed us to do a lot of the heavy lifting before our customers had access. However, it wasn't without challenges; it took us about a year to rebuild the entire UI and flow based on feedback. We kept only about 30% of the original concept, rebuilding the rest over the course of 2023.

The Power of Prototypes

What we learned was the importance of prototypes. There’s a massive gap between a flat design and a 3D design accounting for interactions in actual practice. My takeaway is the importance of building prototypes for any project taking longer than a month. The more time you spend getting meaningful feedback before committing to code, the better it pays off in the end.

Sprinting Our Way to Success

Like many tech companies, we use 2-week sprints to carve big projects into meaningful chunks. This ensures continuous improvement and adaptability. However, we found our team only had an average 50% sprint completion rate initially.

[Image of an Agile Scrum sprint process diagram]

To solve this, we transformed our daily stand-up meetings. We focused more on individual ownership and used our daily sync to find opportunities where we could support each other—like a team huddle during halftime. By boosting communication, we increased our sprint completion rate to 92%!

When Working Remotely, Communication is (More) Key

While in-person work drives spontaneous ideation, we’ve recruited a brilliant global team by working remotely. We overcome the distance by fostering a culture of open communication. I encourage team members to break down virtual barriers via Slack and impromptu meetings. Ask for advice, share knowledge spontaneously, and don’t silo yourself off.

To Be Innovative, Listen to Innovators

My advice to any company in a fast-paced industry is to prioritize feedback from customers at the "top edge" of the market—those pushing boundaries with innovative technology. By listening to each other, we push the whole market forward. Identify when your unique expertise can help elevate a customer in the marketplace.

Crafting the Future with CANVAS

I’m very proud of our team for building PLAY and CANVAS. These tools bridge the gap between power and accessibility, balancing advanced functionality with intuitive design to empower both designers and marketers.

Join Us on Our Journey of Innovation

As we continue to expand the horizons of digital creativity, we invite you to be a part of our journey. Whether through CANVAS or PLAY, our suite of creative technology tools can help you connect with your audience. Let's create, innovate, and inspire together.

Request a Demo Today!