Work in progress

Museum Hours:
Website + Design System

This side project is ongoing and a work in progress. It all started with the idea of creating a little printable poster of my favorite NYC museums with their hours and free days. After I created that, I was inspired to scale the idea into a website, where I was then inspired to learn more about how to properly build a design system.

This story is best told in 3 parts.

PANdemic boredom

1. It all started with an idea for a poster.

I love museums and I am lucky to live a mere 20-minute train ride away from some of the world’s best cultural institutions (a privilege I take for granted). Like many, I fell off going to museums during the pandemic, and now that spaces are generally safer, I want to get back in the habit of frequenting these incredible places.

I sometimes like to take advantage of free or ‘pay-as-you-wish’ days, and I wanted to create a small printable poster I could keep next to my desk, to act as a visible reminder TO GO. If all the info is in front of me, maybe I will be more inclined to jump on the train if I see, “oh, it’s Friday—The Whitney is open until 10 tonight!”

I went through many rounds of sketches and landed on a very clean and simple chart-style layout.

But the idea didn’t stop there.

I THINK i’m onto something

2. “I should turn this into a website!”
(every designer at some point)

I like the poster, but I need more.

But if I create a website, what am I trying to solve?

I want a website that tells me all the New York City museums with free admission for that given day. I don’t want to search 10+ plus museum sites to find their hours and free days—and I can’t be the only person who would like this one-stop shop.

I was too excited to create a proper brief and started sketching. However, I plan to, as I realized more problem-definition and goals will help direct my design process.

Here are a couple of drafts I’ve created so far.

homepage sketch

individual museum page

THINGS GOT SERIOUS

3. As I got deeper, I wanted to try creating a proper design system from scratch.

As I’ve been sketching and creating new components, it struck me that this would be the perfect opportunity to build my own design system, and brush up on new component Figma features, as they are ever-changing.

While at Betterment I of course worked with our design system and was able to contribute a component or two with documentation, but I never built my own from scratch. Below is a sneak peek.

Youtube and Figma resources have been my best friend so far, here are some resources I recommend:

Joey Banks
Jesse Showalter
Figma Community Resources
designsystemsforfigma.com