MARKETPLACE · DESIGN + BUILD · 2024
Easel & Hammer
An art auction house moving online without losing the room — a bidding site that treats each lot like it’s under gallery lights, not in a spreadsheet.
- CLIENT
- Easel & Hammer, Vienna
- ROLE
- Design, development, art direction
- TIMELINE
- 10 weeks
- OUTCOME
- +61% online bid volume
THE PROBLEM
Their saleroom was all hush and warm light; their website was a grid of thumbnails with prices, and it flattened everything that made a lot worth wanting. Online bidders hesitated, because the screen gave them no reason not to.
The house was leaving money in the room — literally — because the online experience couldn’t build the desire the auctioneer could.
THE APPROACH
Each lot page is staged like a wall in the gallery: the work large and generous, provenance and condition quiet beside it, the bid never more than a thumb-reach away. The catalogue browses like a slow walk, not a search result.
The live sale runs in real time without a jarring reload — bids, timers, and the hammer all update in place, so an online paddle feels like sitting in the third row.
THE OUTCOME
Online bidding climbed by more than half, and lots that used to stall on the web started drawing the same competitive runs the room did.
“He gave the website the one thing we thought only the room had — the nerve to bid.”