NextHavn
The creative industry's next operating system
NextHavn is an active product still in development. This is a condensed look at the thinking and design decisions that have gone into this project rather than a full process breakdown.
NextHavn puts talent, studios and gear on one platform that works across borders. Creative work is scattered today: job leads get buried in social media DMs, studio availability is hard to find and renting gear depends on who you know.
ROLE
I led the design of NextHavn's website and the core experience for its upcoming web app, turning a broad platform with many kinds of users into specific interface and interaction decisions.
Across the marketing site and the product, my job was to make the platform's many parts (talent discovery, studio booking, gear rental, payments and community) easy to understand and move between.
Alongside the design work, I created and ran a recruitment survey to bring real creatives into the research process, using it to source participants and gather early signal on the product's viability. The survey doubled as a validation tool, surfacing how creatives actually source work, book spaces and manage gear.
CORE PILLARS AND FUNCTIONALITY
The platform follows a production from pre-production sourcing through to post-production delivery. Three pillars hold that workflow up:
Verified Creative Network: A global, vetted database of photographers, videographers, editors, crew and digital artists. Every profile can be searched and filtered by skill, location, daily or hourly rate and live calendar availability, so hiring runs on informed choices instead of guesswork and referrals.
On-Demand Bookings: A direct-to-studio marketplace where users can browse, compare and instantly reserve photography, film and audio recording spaces. Transparent pricing and automated calendar management remove the back-and-forth that normally sits between needing a space and securing one.
Equipment Marketplace: An upcoming portal for renting professional production gear (cameras, drone rigs, lighting setups) anywhere in the world. Standard rental contracts, verified availability and fixed liability terms bring predictability to a process that has long run on informal trust.
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WHY THE ECOSYSTEM MATTERS
Right now a single project can mean juggling messaging apps, invoicing tools, portfolio hosts and a patchwork of regional rental agencies. NextHavn pulls all of that into one place. Independent artists get real local visibility, and global brands can start a production anywhere in the world and safely put together a local team without the usual logistical mess.