CuratePro — a spatial planning tool for Berlin Atonal's curatorial team

CuratePro on a tablet — a curator holds the floor-plan view of Kraftwerk with projects pinned to spaces

Introduction

CuratePro. is a spatial planning tool designed for Berlin Atonal’s curatorial team. It transforms the festival venue into a shared project map, connecting artists, spaces, deadlines, and conversations in one place. By bringing fragmented information into a single visual workspace, CuratePro helps teams understand project status at a glance and stay aligned throughout the festival planning process.

Details

Project
CuratePro.
Timeframe
2024
Role
Product designer
Platform
B2C
Collaborative
Almog Cohen, Product designer

My role

  1. User research
  2. Product design
  3. Working prototypes
The CuratePro wordmark on a grey gradient A visitor silhouetted against a light installation at Berlin Atonal The CuratePro icon set, acid yellow on black
Type specimen — Futurism for display, Poppins for the interface CuratePro on a tablet — the projects dashboard with the venue floor plan Dark and acid-yellow interface cards — the colour system

Process and research

We started with the building. Every curatorial decision at Atonal is also a decision about where in Kraftwerk something happens, so the floor plans became the first design material, before a single screen.

Floor 1
Architectural floor plan of Kraftwerk Berlin, floor 1
Floor 2
Architectural floor plan of Kraftwerk Berlin, floor 2
Floor 3
Architectural floor plan of Kraftwerk Berlin, floor 3

The problem

Every curatorial decision is connected to the physical venue: Which artist gets the 20-metre hall? What can share a wall with a sub-bass installation? How many people can occupy Floor 3 at once?

But the information needed to make those decisions lived across chats, spreadsheets, and printed floor plans. There was no shared spatial context, making it difficult for the team to understand how individual decisions affected the bigger picture, and causing project information to quickly fall out of sync.

The solution

CuratePro turns the building into the team’s shared workspace. Curators can explore the blueprint and instantly see what’s happening in each space, from the assigned artist and technical requirements to upcoming deadlines and the latest conversation.

By putting place, people, and project information in the same context, CuratePro gives the entire team a shared understanding of the festival as it takes shape.

The design research

Research board — festival photography, poster references and interface benchmarks arranged in two rows

Key decisions

Three decisions shaped the product, and each one gave something up.

  1. Transparency over minimalism. Status, deadlines, ownership and open threads are visible at a glance, because a curator’s day is coordination. The screens are denser than we would have liked.
  2. One source of truth. Planning, communication, deadlines and space allocation live in a single system instead of parallel workflows. That asks a team to leave tools they already know.
  3. Conversation attached to the work. Comments live on the artist, the space or the task, so context is never lost. It also means conversation that cuts across projects has no natural home.

Two main flows

Nine tablet screens from the placing flow — floor plans, project lists and artist details

Placing a project

Open a floor, tap a spot, and add a project. Select artists, add a note, and the pin appears with capacity updated automatically. Less time managing spreadsheets, more time curating.

Following a project

The dashboard surfaces what matters across the festival, artist status, locations, upcoming tasks, and on-site activity. Every detail stays connected to its place on the map, so teams can move from overview to context in one click.

Floor plan with numbered project pins and the capacity of each space
Space card for Screen B, with the artwork assigned to it

Working prototype

We built the map view as a working prototype rather than a static mockup, so you could drop a project onto Floor 1 and watch the capacity figure change.

Next project

My Arts

Wakey