Katerina

Aggelos


Tomorrow marks 7 years since launching and almost 5 years since the last major update of unDraw. So it's time for a brand new version, with significant changes and many firsts.

## New website

The re-design is probably the first thing you notice, but the biggest change is going from infinite scroll to pagination. This was the decision that troubled us a a lot but was really necessary to be able to grow the number of illustrations unDraw can serve. It also makes unDraw as fast as possible.

Next is the improved search functionality. Now not only you get the results with the same near-instant speed but also a new url you can revisit and share. The only UX change is that you have to submit the form. So finally you can go back and forth with your browser, while maintaining the color you have selected.

The most important change though is the quality of the downloads. The SVGs are now rendered in the initially designed dimensions and of course remain scalable in any size without quality loss. But now the PNG files are also 2-3 times the previous size for crisp results everywhere. You'll also notice that both types of downloads are near instant with download times less than 10ms. So now you can use the illustrations with even better results.

The illustrations grid is significantly improved to better showcase the artwork and maintain your focus as uninterrupted as possible. The color picker has been changed for the first time and is now ready for stored palettes, which will soon be available. Also worth mentioning that the blog is now part of the main website and a small number of posts were kept so we can start over and write more on our own space instead of relying solely on social.

## Artwork

All these are significant changes but unDraw is mainly its illustrations. For the past few years we were mostly in a maintenance and experimental phase. The collection kept being re-invented so it doesn't become too overused or boring. But these years of experience make it easier to know what works, what looks great and how to scale the design system of the illustrations, to achieve that.

You'll notice that we're already returning new and older entries to the more classic unDraw style. So as we move forward the collection will include more clean, distinct and fashionable illustrations instead of more subtle and/or experimental ones. Soon this will have been applied across most of the collection.

## Supporters

For all these years unDraw has been successful thanks to its supporters. Everyone who helps spread the word, uses it regularly and the awesome people who subscribe to unDraw Plus and contribute for us to keep working on it. This new version allows us to start creating features directly on unDraw and make it even more useful for all of you. So you can expect to be able to start storing your colors in an organized way really soon. You'll also be able to store the illustrations you like for later use and even re-download already downloaded ones with the same color, among other features.

## Integrations & Other Products

Last year we were also able to share a new open tool to create card graphics and the response has been great. We'd love to continue sharing free and other products we are working on. To be able to expand we had to decide to stop maintaining some previous projects. Like our Miro integration which is not available anymore. Moodful for Adobe XD is also no longer available for new installs and the unDraw for XD and unDraw for X are going to be deprecated later this year.

These create the space and allow us to work on some exciting new things and will have some new ones really soon! You can already see a link to ShareBoost, a new project by us to make your idle domains start ranking on search engines early. More interesting projects to follow soon!

## Thank you

There were many things to mention this year, but it's time to wrap this post up! We are excited and believe this is a great version and hope you'll enjoy it too. The whole point of unDraw is the people who use it and love it. So we keep on improving it and expanding its scope to make it even more useful. For all the support and motivation throughout all these years, thank you and enjoy the brand new unDraw!


Seven years since launching and almost 5 years since the last major update of unDraw, it's time for a brand new awesome version.

7 years unDraw - Rebuild


If there is one other product that is connected to unDraw, that is [ShareBoost](https://shareboost.co) . That's what I was working on in 2017 when unDraw launched. A website creation platform to create beautiful coming soon pages for upcoming products or sites. So when we were even brainstorming unDraw with Katerina, excited about sharing her work, she created a coming soon page with ShareBoost. Of course, it became the most successful launch using Shareboost, with more than a thousand people interested enough to subscribe. However, with unDraw taking off and for a few other reasons, ShareBoost faded out of my focus and I shut it down a year or so afterwards.

## Reboot

With several other projects down the line, the need for ShareBoost kept coming back. But this time the focus is on getting ranked on search engines. To have your project show up in the first few results when someone searches for it, even a day after launching it. Also you get a place to see what you set out to create when you bought the domain. And a place to share that is minimal but real, instead of just an idea. These are the problems this new version is solving. And not focusing on vanity metrics or getting emails (at least for now).

## Product

This is truly a minimum viable version but that doesn't mean it does not work great. It serves a super fast and SEO friendly small site. It gets indexed by Google and the other search engines. Even from A.I. crawlers. But it's minimal in the sense that it focuses only on what is absolutely necessary for now. It has no payments (it's free). You can add up to 3 domains and check their status. You can add your own copy and optionally a link for your visitors. You can even customize the color a bit. But that's it for now. I'll be adding more features as they become necessary for me or anyone who uses ShareBoost and hopefully it'll be even more awesome.

If you want to use it, just visit [ShareBoost](https://shareboost.co) and add your domains. There is a feedback widget on top, so feel free to also reach out with any comment you may have or just to say hi. Thank you for reading this and hope you'll like it.


Revisited an old project to make idle domains functional for free. Read to learn more if you are interested in ranking higher early.

The new ShareBoost


unDraw Silhouettes for Adobe Express is here and is a little different than the classic collection. Aimed for graphics and posters it contains a new style of artwork that will enable you to create awesome designs. Here's a quick look on its unique features and how you can use it.

After you browse or search and find the image you want to use you can either click or drag and drop the image directly in your canvas. Basically that's all you need to do. But I forgot to mention the cool part! You can customize the color before you import and get the artwork to fully match your design and brand. To do that, just click on the button next to search and, depending on your browser, you will get a nice little native interface that will change the artwork color live, so you can sample it before using it. Even the background will adjust to your selection to a light/dark mode to make it better visible. You can, of course, search by relative terms to find specific images and it goes without saying that this add-on is governed the open license of unDraw, so no cost or need for attribution for you!

Looking forward to seeing what amazing designs you'll create and hope you'll enjoy both Adobe Express and the new unDraw add-on!


We partnered with Adobe to bring unDraw to the new Express. Learn more about the artwork and how to use the new add-on.

unDraw for Adobe Express


It's been a while since we posted an update but today is the day! The v1 of [unDraw+](https://plus.undraw.co/) is live after being in the works for quite some time. Not only a complete redesign but a major update for how everything works.

The goal is not to simply enable everyone who wants to support unDraw. It’s to create something really useful that adds to the value of the open-source illustrations. So, now on unDraw+ you can find the icons collection new and improved. You'll also be able to generate covers for your content with iconography and color customization.

The photo tools have also been rebuilt from the ground up, with the Auto-Edit now showing the improved version compared with the uploaded image, the Duotone tool is much faster with better results and we've also added the new Color Blend tool to edit images to match your brand tone.

The biggest change however, is the new Social Cards tool that replaces the Text covers and offers so many new possibilities. Multiple starting points, more copy options to suit your content, precision palette customization and the ability to add logos/images. It also comes with expanded language support for Japanese, Hindu and many more languages.

This brings unDraw+ to a stable version and the foundation to build and release new features like saving your own colors and more new tools. It also is now ready for the most exciting step of unDraw. So I’m really happy to be able to say that the new illustrations, which are the future of unDraw, will be available for supporters starting next week. Beautiful elements, new style and ready for more use cases! But that's a story for another time.

Hope all of you who supported unDraw will enjoy the new version of [unDraw+](https://plus.undraw.co/). If you haven't been able to join up to now, this is the last week that the price is reduced and non-recurring. Either way thank you for reading, for being a part of unDraw and/or unDraw+ and for celebrating this milestone with us!


It's been a while since we posted an update but today is the day! Version 1 of unDraw+ is live after being in the works for quite some time.

unDraw+ v1 is now live


_Time for the traditional post to outline what happened the past year and the goals for the next one. It’s gonna be longer than usual, so no pressure to read this! :-)_

It’s certainly been a weird year. From following up on the decision to lead unDraw into maintenance mode to prepare it for the future, to almost getting acquired which wasted most of the year and finally getting back on track in the last quarter. While [last year](https://ninalimpi.medium.com/three-years-of-undraw-d548904115) I couldn’t believe unDraw surpassed 400k users twice, this year the average was over 400k which is quite amazing for a 2-person project.

## The Past Year

**Maintenance Mode:** Having designed 1.4k illustrations in the first three years, I’ve decided to focus not on growing but improving the library with the latest more defined and versatile style. It was data collected and lessons learnt that led the evolution of the [unDraw](https://undraw.co/) style so I had to implement it to a wider scale. With over 600 completely re-designed from scratch illustrations, that is exactly what happened and the new improved style now is almost dominant across the collection.

**Almost Acquired:** Super rare for an open-source project but last year we found ourselves going through an acquisition process. Cannot say much for obvious reasons but I had to add it to last year’s log, if not as the highlight since it was a first-time experience for me, but as the reason most of the year was unproductive. Anyway, that’s a story for another time.

**Collaborations & Adobe:** Now onto the good parts of 2021. During the second half of the year, we had the chance to work with the Adobe Creative Cloud partnerships team and to build upon the cool beginning we had with unDraw for XD. This led to [unDraw X](https://x.undraw.co/), a brand new version for CC users that contains some unique illustrations ready to be synced in their libraries. We also released the stable version for the Symbols for Miro integration and completed an upcoming integration for Framer. These tools and more like Moodful can be found now inside unDraw in the [creative tools](https://undraw.co/creative-tools) page.

**Handcrafts & v3:** We also rebuilt unDraw from scratch for the third time. Real-time SVG downloads, perfect Lighthouse scores but more importantly and for the first time a brand new illustration collection. [Handcrafts](https://undraw.co/handcrafts) is the modern and lightweight alternative style that is now live under the same open-source license! Although it’s still very early, the designs I’ve seen have been impressive so I’ll be updating the collection really soon!

## The Future

Last year the decision was to get unDraw into maintenance mode. This provides a strong foundation to now focus on growth. Not only to reach more people, but to create new designs and products that can have true impact and help lots of creatives. Instead of a detailed roadmap to allow for more creative freedom, here are some areas we’ll be focusing on.

**Applied Design:** We have to return to unDraw’s initial mission to provide everyone with high quality design assets. This could mean that we should move beyond illustrations to more production-ready design solutions. Design should not be a bottleneck and speed bump for creating new products so that’s a part I’d love to work on to solve problems.

**A New Illustration Standard:** I had the chance to return to my actual work as an illustrator and experiment extensively with some new styles. So I’m happy to be in the process of documenting and sharing my research. I’m pretty convinced this could have a huge impact on modern web design comparable to the one that unDraw has.

**Practical Animation:** An area that used to be extremely exclusive is now opening up and with a few modifications and tools it can be available for everyone. Rive, Framer Motion and AirBnB’s Lottie (not the “files” thing, the actual tech) are leading the way and it’s now time to help the mainstream adoption.

**Builder Knowledge:** In our pursuit of keeping unDraw open and inclusive for everyone, we created Virality. It will soon be launched and it will not only help ensure the viability of unDraw but also help people who produce quality work share their knowledge, progress and ideas.

Anyway, now it’s not the time to expand further on any of the above. Now it's time to celebrate reaching this incredible milestone! 4 years of open-source design! It could not have been possible without the most supportive and wonderful community! Once again, thank you to everyone who has helped and used unDraw!


Time for the traditional post to outline what happened the past year and the goals for the next one.

4 Years of unDraw


Lately there's been a noticeable number of attempts to create communities online and especially in the creative space. Even with the best intentions and people eager to join, most of them fail and will continue to do so, despite the universal need to belong somewhere. It's not a matter of joining and reaping the benefits, but a more important decision that has to be carefully considered.

Usually, successful communities are created in a spontaneous fashion, with members that share common interests, goals and eventually values. This process cannot be forced or purposely replicated.

## Abundance of challenges

People looking to join a community, are usually drawn to prominent members, or are attracted to an ideal view of themselves after joining. However, when you join a community, you are giving permission to be identified by every single member's actions and behaviours, whatever they may be.

While you think of the advantages you'll enjoy, you forget or intentionally neglect that, like in Democracy, rights come with responsibilities. You'll gain support and companionship, but in return you have to speak up against wrong behaviours. But how many do that when the time comes? That's the question, that most of us, answer by ignoring.

That's really evident in the [maker space](https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/makers-diluting-ih-ee6a9c6aed) lately. Even though most people are sweating away to create something valuable, a few, really vocal members choose the easy way to copy and rebrand existing work of others, to game the system and be a part of the community. Such actions lead to unfair group labelling, that tends to be accurate as time progresses, with self-respecting members distancing themselves and leaving space for similar behaviours

Even respected and successful communities, have their problems, since they attract users at a higher rate and are tempted to pursue growth, which can become uncontrollable. The [Eternal September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September) resembles what threatens the most successful ones nowadays and even companies that operate with similar rules, like Y Combinator. Huge influx of new members, usually leads to compromises on the quality and core values of even the best communities. To paraphrase [M.Collin](https://twitter.com/collinmathilde), the CEO of Front, with every new member you accept, think if you could handle 10 similar ones, because as you grow, that's what will happen.

## Not probable, but possible

This does not mean that it's not possible to establish a successful and open online community. But it cannot be forced or rushed and it's better to have a small, slow-growing community that provides a sensible time-frame for new members to adjust or remove themselves voluntarily, if they fail to do that. That's probably why when you see a high-growing community advertise itself, you know how it will end up.

_A special thank you to [Aggelos Gesoulis](https://twitter.com/anges244) for helping me sort my thoughts and write this post._


Even with the best intentions and people eager to join, most attempts to create communities fail and will continue to do so.

Thoughts on Communities


For a year and a half, we've been working to provide everyone with illustrations, without any cost or need for attribution. As a result, we've met and heard about so many creative people, producing awesome work, without the incredible luck of having such a welcoming audience. So now, as promised, it's time to share the spotlight and help them reach others.

## Out Of Focus

Despite the numerous resources filled with design-related content, there seems to be a focus on a small, well-connected part that gets all the attention. The widespread adoption of design in many other fields, has led to a new world, but so many people are still being left out, and their accomplishments go uncelebrated. So as creativity has changed, so have the needs for content to include this huge movement.

## What You Do, Not Who You Know

Geographical limits for creativity have collapsed, access to awesome design tools is free and real-world work is overtaking cheap tricks to gather followers. This shift is happening and we ought it to ourselves to embrace it and help speed the process up. Creativity nowadays is more like an open worldwide party, rather than an expensive conference where a small group of designers, gather to congratulate themselves.

## Real World, Real Work

In this change we all play our part, so we are here to join this movement with a blog that will help other members of the creative community _(no matter their field or follower count)_ get their work out there. A blog that will try to stay away from pretentious posts but will focus on real-world projects with real impact on real people. So this will probably be us together, having fun, sharing whatever we learn and showcasing other people's awesome work.

## A Real Discussion

So here we go, free from Medium, with a new platform that will enable us to share more on things we really know and experiment with fun content that we (and hopefully you) find interesting. unDraw Creatives is the way to continue our online discussion in a more personal way. Thank you for reading this first post and we hope you'll be there, with respect to everyone, to express your feelings and opinions, no matter what they are and if we agree!

![unDraw Swing image](https://cdn.undraw.co/blogimages/undraw_hello_world_swing.gif)

_Update: This was the first post for the unDraw Creatives blog where we featured interesting open source design projects. With the new update the blog will be more focused on news and updates from our team._


Like in the developer world, this probably is the best way to introduce our blog, so here's our "getting started" blog post!