We are thrilled to say that A Design Kit is NOW AVAILABLE for iOS users in the App Store!! This app has been a long time coming and we’re so excited that we can now share it with all of you. Initially, Elsie and I were just talking about apps, partly brainstorming new features for ACS and one thing she mentioned was she wished she had was more realistic brushes to use for IG stories or general designs on her photos. So if you’re into origin stories, A Design Kit started off as a brush app idea, but quickly evolved. We kept adding more things, thinking “Well, if a user wanted to use a brush, then they may want fonts too, so we might as well add that to the app,” and it snowballed from there. We’re super happy that we didn’t stop with brushes and we think you will be too. 🙂
A Design Kit is composed of four major design tools to use on your photos: brushes, text, design, and stickers. I’ll explain a bit more about each tool and see them in action below:
Brushes
We knew from the start that we wanted realistic brushes in the app! With A Design Kit, you can write with the look of markers, pencils, paintbrushes and more. We also love that the brushes can be used in different textures, gradients, and metallics (Did you hear that? You can WRITE IN METALLIC!). Once you’re done writing or drawing, you can even resize the drawing. This makes it much easier to create handwritten elements on your phone (or at least we think so) because you can write larger than you might want and simply resize it down.
Text
Choose from a bunch of different modern fonts, including simple, editorial, typewriter, and more. This is perfect for a quote to go on your Instagram feed or just a fun caption to put onto your stories! This app is also a great tool for online small business owners as you can easily design assets you might need to market your offerings on social media. As small business owners, and (obviously) avid Instagram users ourselves, we get it! So we wanted this app not only to be really fun but useful too.
Design
A Design Kit also has a lot of different design elements to add to your photo, including lines, shapes, and paint strokes! You can change the texture and color on these too! Of course you can create your own using the brushes from the app, but the designs are already made so that it can be that much faster to put together an awesome looking image.
Stickers
We may have gone a little overboard with these, but the stickers in A Design Kit are So. Much. Fun! We had some of our favorite illustrators help us out with these, so there are different styles and kinds to choose from. We can’t wait to see them start popping up in your stories!
A Design Kit has been a lot of work but SO worth it! We’re proud of the result and can hardly wait to start seeing all of your creations. Also, once you download you’ll see the you can move back and forth between A Color Story and A Design Kit. So you can easily use the filters and photo editing tools you love in ACS and then add your design elements in ADK seamlessly. We’re thinking of A Design Kit as the trendy little sister of A Color Story, so feel free to think of her this way too. 😉
So what comes with the initial download? There’s a lot, and here’s what you can expect:
-7 Brushes
-25+ Fonts
-120+ Designs
-120+ Stickers
After you play around with the app, it would mean so much if you would leave us a review! And if you’re having any issues at all, we’d love to troubleshoot with you. Just reach out through our app support, so we can be sure to get all the information we need. xo. Emma, Elsie, Trey, Rachel, and the whole ACS team
FAQs
Q. Is this available for Android?
A. Unfortunately, no. It’s nothing personal against you or against the platform. And yes, we’re very aware of the enormous user base. But we’ve invested in developing Android apps twice in the past, and both struggled to make a minimal profit. The Android market simply doesn’t spend as much in their store as iOS.
Q. Will this be available for iPad?
A. Soon, but not yet. We’re working on that as we speak, as we think these brushes are going to be a ton of fun on a larger canvas.
Q. Why not just update A Beautiful Mess?
A. A Design Kit definitely has some similarities to A Beautiful Mess, in that you can add text and design elements. However, we had several more modern looks and features we wanted to include that would require us to change and take away certain functions of A Beautiful Mess to create the app we really wanted. We released the ABM app five years ago and see now as a good time to move onto something new.
22 Comments
Yay, I’m excited, going to download it now! ❤️
The features look amazing, great job girls! 🙂
Charmaine Ng | Architecture & Lifestyle Blog
http://charmainenyw.com
Although it says it’s not available for iPad yet, I just downloaded it on mine and was playing around with it. Tons of fun! LOVE the brushes and all the different colors/gradients! Great job!!
OMG this is just too exciting! Congratulations you guys! I’m having so much fun using A Color Story, and I literally can’t wait till I can switch to IOS so that I can go crazy with A Design Kit! xoxo <3
Sounds like a great app! A little disheartening to know that there are no plans for an Android version of this app. I have been using A Color Story for a while for all my picture editing on my phone and I absolutely love the app!! In fact, that’s the only app I use and I buy filters on it all the time.
Hoping you’ll reconsider and hoping to see the updates to ACS that the iOS users are getting!
I second Hetal. I’m super bummed for no android version. I was super excited when I saw all the cool things this app could do and would love to have the opportunity to use it. I only use ACS to edit photos and would love to continue using ABM apps.
This is so so so exciting!! I’m downloading it as i write this, like literally! Can’t wait to play with it in like 2 minutes! 🙂
Melodie | http://happymelodie.com/
So good. Love how you can size images specifically for IG stories!
What do you recommend for styllus when writing with brushes or do you use your finger?
Any chance you could list what fonts are on there? I’m looking for a specific one. Thank you so much!
I just bought it! I can’t wait to try it out. I love this blog. I haven’t done anything on mine in quite a while. Hopefully I will get some inspiration soon.
Congrats Elsie & Emma & the whole team behind it. I can’t wait to purchase and play around with it.
http://www.shannoninthecity.com/
This app sounds lovely, what a great idea! Your apps are always so creative and fun to use, congrats on this one ladies xx
http://mylovelierdays.com
So exciting. I just got it and can’t wait to try it out. Love the fun assortment of stickers available! Mary Wilding
so sad that there is no Android version :'( but I understand the reason. So glad the app made it to #1!
This looks so amazing! Great job gals! Unfortunately I can’t download it because I don’t own any apple products… But hopefully I can one day!
I just looked at A Color Story and A Design Kit in the App Store and I love them! I’m in the process of starting a blog, and I’ve been thinking about how to edit photos, so this is perfect timing for this discovery.
I really love your app A Color Story, been using it since it was launched in Android. Too bad this will not be available for Android users. This would have been perfect for creatives with Samsung Note
Any plans to reconsider Android? Or can you do a post about apps you love if your not using an iPhone that are similar and that you’d like using? I know iPhones are popular but there has to something out there since A Design Kit won’t be available…. Or if anyone reading this knows of something! I love A Color Story and even deleted VSCO off my phone because I stopped using it. Thank you!
I aboustley lovvvveee this app but i’m having issuse with the IOS is there somthing wrong with the app?
Hi Kate! If you contact our app support they will be happy to help (www.acolorstory.com/support)
I second this! I recently switched from apple to android as I was just struggling to justify the cost of an iphone… and was excited to see I could still use a color story but not a design kit! So any of your favorites that work on android would be much appreciated! Love you guys so much!
I am so bummed you won’t be making this for Android. I would totally purchase this app. We need more apps like this on Android.