Overview

CANVVS set out to give the custom sneaker world a proper home. Artists were building followings on Instagram but had no dedicated place to sell, manage commissions, or be discovered at scale. The platform needed to serve two very different audiences at once: collectors who wanted something no one else owned, and creators who needed a professional business tool, not just a shop window.

Challenge

Custom sneaker art sits at an unusual intersection of craft, streetwear, and collectibles, passionate and niche, with no established infrastructure behind it. The design had to feel credible to serious artists while remaining accessible to buyers new to the space, without reducing either experience to a generic ecommerce template.

Approach

Working as Creative Director and Designer at Rehab, I led design, I led the design to move it form a brand deck → UX and UI in a four-week sprint. A key product decision was the dual account model: separate buyer and seller experiences, with creators getting dedicated tools to manage listings, handle custom commissions, and track orders. Beta demos with the artist community kept the product grounded in how creators actually worked. Following launch, we extended the platform to include the CANVVS Awards, a head-to-head competition with a dedicated judging system for evaluating submissions fairly.

Outcome

Launched on schedule and grew into a full marketplace with brand partnership activations across Warner Music, Puma, Marvel, Disney, and the FA and a global creator community spanning the US, UK, Europe, and beyond.