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Hi Trevor and Jared, http://weavesilk.com http://weavesilk.com is a side project of mine for many years. I put out a brand new version of the iOS app this mont

Hi Trevor and Jared, http://weavesilk.com http://weavesilk.com is a side project of mine for many years. I put out a brand new version of the iOS app this month and am thinking about developing it further but find it very hard to decide what direction to go. The website is popular, and people love Silk, but for different reasons: some find it relaxing and meditative, others like that it closes the gap between their artistic ability and taste. It's been used as an inspirational sketching tool for artists (http://bit.ly/1Qlm1kA http://bit.ly/1Qlm1kA), to make album art, and has been on exhibit at the Children's Creativity Museum. Some teachers use it to teach kids about symmetry. I've made something compelling but don't know what to do next, or how to figure it out.

nightpool 11y ago
Wow, closing the gap between artistic ability and taste is actually a really good way to describe how weavesilk feels to me. Thanks for making it!
snowmaker 11y ago
I actually really think you have something here. I spent some time playing with it, and it's quite addictive. What I like best is that it allows someone with zero artistic ability (like me) to make a piece of artwork that they'd be proud of. That's quite a trick. What are some things you've thought about building on top of it? What have your users been asking for?
- yurivish 11y ago
  Thanks, Jared! Some of the things I've thought about: - Expanding the expressive range. The new app has a "silk eraser" and I have ideas for at least one new type of brush. - Continuous undo (as if it's a movie), or at least more undo levels. - Making a better Alchemy: http://al.chemy.org/ http://al.chemy.org/ - Unifying the experience of the website (2013; JS/Canvas) and the new app (Swift/Metal) - The website lets you share replays of your drawings that play back on the site. What's the best way to do something similar with the app? - A gallery would be great but requires figuring out the previous two points to some extent. There's a lot of potential but it feels like a lot to navigate through. Long-term I'd love Silk to be a Bret Victor-inspired environment for visually exploring computation: Compute with color and time, explore the system, make your own brushes. You can think of a brush as a function from input history to pixels on the canvas. I think there's a lot of potential here. Some of the common things people ask for: - More colors. The new app has more palettes, which is a start. - More undo levels. - High-resolution export. This will be coming to the app, potentially inside a bundle of "pro" features. - Plugins for Photoshop and other professional design tools. - Prints. I've experimented with prints before but found that the art doesn't come out nearly as well in print. My bar for quality here is this piece made by a talented designer friend (Anand Sharma) many years ago: http://bit.ly/1TDS2sz http://bit.ly/1TDS2sz. Maybe the right answer here is something more ephemeral like greeting cards.
  - snowmaker 11y ago
    It sounds like you have engaged users who are giving you useful feedback. I like the idea of a gallery - that will help you grow as people show off their work. You don't necessarily need live replays to do it - you could start with static and add those later. One thing to think about is how you can make it grow more. Your users won't generally bring you growth ideas, but it's important to always be thinking about how to get more users.
    - yurivish 11y ago
      Good feedback. Thank you so much.
  - justinlaing 11y ago
    Here's an idea: Pair it with something like brain.fm and market it as a relaxation/meditation technique. Also +1 for the gallery idea, and not worrying about animations, just a gallery with voting and show off the ones that get the most votes. Like: http://www.colourlovers.com/palettes http://www.colourlovers.com/palettes Another idea from that: take the palettes from colourlovers and add those as something people can choose from to do the drawings with.
  - beambot 11y ago
    +1 for prints! And if you can't find a good-enough service... at least let us pay for higher-res image downloads. I just downloaded one of my images (1125x917px). I'm sure I could come up with a design where I'd pay for a higher-res version! EDIT: Also, add a mailing list. I'd like to be notified when you get around to doing high-res or prints. Right now, I can't even find contact information to get in touch with you to make this request.
sharemywin 11y ago
dumb question but can you do different colors besides blue and white?
- tedmiston 11y ago
  Click the blue dot in the top left corner to change color and drawing params
pcmaffey 11y ago
Right off the bat I would say a public gallery would be neat and engaging. It's really easy to make something beautiful with this (!), so if you create a public forum for sharing & competing to make something even cooler, you could probably catch a lot of eyeballs, and monetize that way. Then your growth comes down to keeping people engaged with new / fun ways to make art easily.
jaz46 11y ago
Holy crap this is so much fun! You're definitely onto something pretty sweet here.
panosv 11y ago
My first creation is my desktop background. Cool stuff. I'd love to see a gallery of some curated images.
askafriend 11y ago
Instant fun. You have something here.

nightpool 11y ago

Wow, closing the gap between artistic ability and taste is actually a really good way to describe how weavesilk feels to me. Thanks for making it!

snowmaker 11y ago

I actually really think you have something here. I spent some time playing with it, and it's quite addictive. What I like best is that it allows someone with zero artistic ability (like me) to make a piece of artwork that they'd be proud of. That's quite a trick. What are some things you've thought about building on top of it? What have your users been asking for?

yurivish 11y ago
Thanks, Jared! Some of the things I've thought about: - Expanding the expressive range. The new app has a "silk eraser" and I have ideas for at least one new type of brush. - Continuous undo (as if it's a movie), or at least more undo levels. - Making a better Alchemy: http://al.chemy.org/ http://al.chemy.org/ - Unifying the experience of the website (2013; JS/Canvas) and the new app (Swift/Metal) - The website lets you share replays of your drawings that play back on the site. What's the best way to do something similar with the app? - A gallery would be great but requires figuring out the previous two points to some extent. There's a lot of potential but it feels like a lot to navigate through. Long-term I'd love Silk to be a Bret Victor-inspired environment for visually exploring computation: Compute with color and time, explore the system, make your own brushes. You can think of a brush as a function from input history to pixels on the canvas. I think there's a lot of potential here. Some of the common things people ask for: - More colors. The new app has more palettes, which is a start. - More undo levels. - High-resolution export. This will be coming to the app, potentially inside a bundle of "pro" features. - Plugins for Photoshop and other professional design tools. - Prints. I've experimented with prints before but found that the art doesn't come out nearly as well in print. My bar for quality here is this piece made by a talented designer friend (Anand Sharma) many years ago: http://bit.ly/1TDS2sz http://bit.ly/1TDS2sz. Maybe the right answer here is something more ephemeral like greeting cards.
- snowmaker 11y ago
  It sounds like you have engaged users who are giving you useful feedback. I like the idea of a gallery - that will help you grow as people show off their work. You don't necessarily need live replays to do it - you could start with static and add those later. One thing to think about is how you can make it grow more. Your users won't generally bring you growth ideas, but it's important to always be thinking about how to get more users.
  - yurivish 11y ago
    Good feedback. Thank you so much.
- justinlaing 11y ago
  Here's an idea: Pair it with something like brain.fm and market it as a relaxation/meditation technique. Also +1 for the gallery idea, and not worrying about animations, just a gallery with voting and show off the ones that get the most votes. Like: http://www.colourlovers.com/palettes http://www.colourlovers.com/palettes Another idea from that: take the palettes from colourlovers and add those as something people can choose from to do the drawings with.
- beambot 11y ago
  +1 for prints! And if you can't find a good-enough service... at least let us pay for higher-res image downloads. I just downloaded one of my images (1125x917px). I'm sure I could come up with a design where I'd pay for a higher-res version! EDIT: Also, add a mailing list. I'd like to be notified when you get around to doing high-res or prints. Right now, I can't even find contact information to get in touch with you to make this request.

sharemywin 11y ago

dumb question but can you do different colors besides blue and white?

tedmiston 11y ago
Click the blue dot in the top left corner to change color and drawing params

pcmaffey 11y ago

Right off the bat I would say a public gallery would be neat and engaging. It's really easy to make something beautiful with this (!), so if you create a public forum for sharing & competing to make something even cooler, you could probably catch a lot of eyeballs, and monetize that way. Then your growth comes down to keeping people engaged with new / fun ways to make art easily.

jaz46 11y ago

Holy crap this is so much fun! You're definitely onto something pretty sweet here.

panosv 11y ago

My first creation is my desktop background. Cool stuff. I'd love to see a gallery of some curated images.

askafriend 11y ago

Instant fun. You have something here.