Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre
Robert Alice is one of the most significant figures working at the intersection of art and blockchain. Collected by the Centre Pompidou, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Monnaie de Paris, and the first artist to sell an NFT at a major auction house, Alice's practice carries genuine institutional weight. SEAL was their most ambitious generative project to date, a fully on-chain artwork drawing on the millennium-old tradition of Sinosphere collector seals and their relationship to blockchain provenance. Presented by gallery Onkaos at Art Basel Hong Kong 2026, it debuted as part of Zero 10, the fair's curated section for digital and technologically engaged practices.
I was brought in as a consultant to design the exhibition website and purchasing experience for the project's launch.
The Challenge
Art Basel is a high-footfall environment. Collectors move quickly, and the booth needed to convert passing interest into purchases, with an iPad as the primary point of sale.
That constraint shaped everything. The checkout had to be fast, touch-optimised and legible to someone who had been standing in front of it for thirty seconds. But the project itself was genuinely complex: generative algorithms, on-chain mechanics, I Ching-derived cryptography, six tiers of rarity, physical paintings ranging from 6.4cm to over two metres square. The site needed to hold both things at once, enough depth for a serious collector and enough clarity for a first encounter.
Doing that while maintaining the standard expected at Art Basel was the central design problem.
Installation setup
Role
Website design
Purchase flow and UX
iPad-first interaction design
Collaboration with development team on delivery
I worked directly with developers Reva Fan, Monica Luu, Oliver Sepsik and Ilija Trbogazov, staying close throughout to make sure the design translated well into the final build within tight pre-fair deadlines.
Approach
The content was structured around pace. A visitor at the booth has seconds, not minutes. The site needed to orient them quickly, what is this, why does it matter, how do I take part, before going into detail. I led with the conceptual and visual identity of the work and layered in the technical depth for those who wanted it.
The checkout was stripped back to the essentials and built for single-hand use on an iPad, covering a purchase range from $8 entry-level seals through to $40,000 paintings. Every tier needed to feel considered.
The tone and aesthetic had to stay consistent with the seriousness of the project throughout.
Website experience
Outcome
The site launched for the opening of Art Basel Hong Kong on 27 March 2026. SEAL was name-checked in Art Basel's official closing report as a standout presentation within Zero 10, alongside artists including Sougwen Chung. 247 seals were minted across the run, with the mint remaining open for one month following the fair's close.