Six years of unDraw
This is a milestone that never crossed my mind I’d celebrate one day. After more than half a decade of designing open-source illustrations at scale it’s time to move forward.
A brief overview since 2017
When I started unDraw with Aggelos, the idea was to maintain a small side-project. One that I can share illustrations with an open-source license without the restrictions I had to face in client projects. We ended up building a product that was used by more than 1,5 million people just in 2023 (up to now). It grew beyond the classic web illustrations, to include the handcrafts collection, multiple integrations with Adobe which has been our steady partner for the past 4 years and unDraw+. To everyone who uses it, has used it and even supported it, I want to say a huge thank you!
Back to the unDraw roots
They say that around three years of working on a product, there comes a dip in performance. For us, it took a bit longer but it finally happened, early this year. But it’s not just tiredness. It’s about avoiding decisions about evolving your work to something else, beyond what has worked for you in the past and the need to move forward. So we entered a phase of experimentation with unDraw+. To find out how it could be expanded beyond illustrations. How it can become self-sustainable to keep existing and continue helping people who are starting their businesses, people that improve their designs and people who contribute with their own projects. This phase is finally coming to an end and we have a clear plan of what needs to be done so unDraw can provide much more value with its open-source illustrations, while helping its more professional users with a marketing toolbox that is powerful.
The future
But it’s time to look into the future and list the goals for 2024, as I traditionally do on this day.
- A ground-up rebuild of unDraw is long overdue and will happen early this year. From the technological advancements that can make it much faster to many small improvements that will vastly improve the experience.
- The illustrations will keep being improved based on the brand new style system I designed and will completely be redesigned to stand out in the years to come.
- We finally found the way unDraw+ can be really useful and provide value for more professional users of unDraw. But it can’t stay hidden for ever behind the open-source collection. So it will have to move to a new domain and brand to be able to grow more and sustain unDraw and any other open initiatives we want to create.
- It’s going to be a go b̶i̶g̶ forward or go home year. We both want to be able to create more and evolve unDraw but if we can’t keep it up, we’re going to have to come to a conclusion so we’re able to enjoy sharing open projects while working on products we want to build and for me personally, art that I want to create.
Another year of being thankful
Despite doing this for so long, whenever I take a moment to account what happened, I cannot help but feel grateful. For everyone that uses my artwork, that creates and makes the illustrations a part of their design or work. I have met so many interesting people through this project and I hope to be able to continue working on unDraw! Have a great new year and thank you for everything!!!
