Could argue about categorising all illustrations as same because a Twitter feed said so. As a designer, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want your own work to be dismissed like that, without much thought by anyone with an HN/Twitter/Reddit account. But won't argue on that too.
What I think is really unfair to mention is that unDraw has contributed to the commoditization of illustrations. On the contrary, there have been many many projects available to illustrators just because the initial design/proposal/prototype could be built with that and win over the clients. Project designs that would otherwise use photographs but not illustrations.
Sites like Upwork, Freelancer, etc. existed long before unDraw and you could find creative work there for truly humiliating prices. It's extremely inaccurate to blame unDraw for that.
The fact is that unDraw helped bring attention to illustrators and illustrations, which were called icons even a few years ago, by opening up a discussion and many new projects.
Basically that's there to protect Katerina's illustrations. The reverse-engineering has been achieved by a bunch of people and that's ok but exploiting the work she put into each design was really frustrating.
It was the easier way to signal what exactly unDraw was back then when it was launched and since SVG images are code, it was much cleaner than writing CC(whatever) for users to understand. It remains that way but it will be much clearer in the new version.
Hi, surprised to see unDraw posted here, as it's been two years since we started it! I'm Aggelos and I handle the product side of unDraw for Katerina who is the illustrator and creator of the project. So glad you like it and I'll do my best to answer your questions.
1) There's no chance of getting blindsided as Katerina started this to share work that was not used in client projects and keeps designing new ones daily since the reception of it has been amazing. In the off chance she gets tired, she'll just stop adding new ones, so no worries there!
2) She adds 2 daily for the past two years, but can't promise she'll keep up the pace during the holidays! If you want to request a specific one, she's pretty open to it on Twitter @ninalimpi. But don't share this! Haha...
3) Having the color change on the fly and offering PNG alongside SVG's, I think it would be redundant to add more options.
Btw, the footer is available in the homepage and is included in the /illustrations page for aesthetic reasons! Haha!
So cool to see this posted here... I coded that, so if you have any bugs or questions, let me know!!! Hope you guys like it! Thought of posting it on Show HN but forgot about it! Thanks for the share!
That would have been a good thought, but when started, we decided to go with the classic approach! Thankfully, this additional friction hasn't had any significant impact to conversions! Anyway, thanks and it's something I'll keep in mind for future versions or projects.
Haha! I think we do! As instantly as a website can be created wouldn't fit there! But seriously now, instantly refers to the publishing process and not the account creation one. You just fill out your account details, a few important settings and two-three fields and you create a fully functional website that can receive emails, subscribers and can have multiple pages. Sorry if I mislead you!
To be honest you got me! In my mind shipping is the way to go and in the last few days launching is a weird option I almost get dragged into pursuing! Haha... You got the reluctant to charge part completely right and I know you make a great case. Will try to do it the hard way since this is more disappointing and you easily get caught up in a momentary launch fantasy that does not exist! Thank you again for everything!
I think you are right but since it's an immature product, we had to decrease the price significantly.
The goal is somewhere between passive income and becoming something more so maybe that's why the mixed signals. Have to take a look at that, I guess.
I know and we did the math on how free users impact our finances but had to somehow launch it and get attention. What would you suggest? Trials and increased pricing? By the way, thanks for providing your feedback!
The revenue model is simple in this case. For everyone that wants to use a full website (custom domain, analytics, no attribution), a small price is worth it. Adding the notifications on the dashboard is the next step but for now receiving it directly was much easier and instant. I think any grandpa would love to receive contact emails! Haha... By the way you had me worried that it looks like an email catcher website and added a features page. Hope this is a good step but anyway, you are the one to blame!:-P
Oh, I get how boring this is but the decision was to take the boring part out first and allow the users to later focus on the real process! Anyway, noted and I'll try to think of another solution!
Actually it is in full production and the goal is to get feedback so that's why it's completely free. The email needs to be verified as this is the address you'll receive contact messages from your created website, thus the need to be correct. It's not about the value but not to send emails to an incorrect address. I have set it to confirmed so you can proceed.
Sorry, forgot to add examples... http://my-awesome-game.coolgamer.club/ is a demo I created, http://ben-the-exorcist.coolgamer.club/ is a random one a user created... To get the email from Twitter, this is the authorization permissions I had to ask. The need for your email is so you can receive email signups directly there and I wanted to avoid the need to verify your address, so Twitter provided the solution... I think it goes without saying that it won't be posting on your Twitter profile and it won't spam. If you do not trust it, you could revoke access at any moment. But sorry no, there is no other way to sign up, at least for now...