| Hi HN, Creating lots of marketing visuals in different resolutions for all the social media platforms out there in multiple languages is time-consuming and frankly really annoying. I wanted to make a solution for this that is fun / cheap / fast and that can be used by both developers and non-developers (such as designers and digital marketers). I built the entire app solo while working full-time. The most fulfilling parts has been the technical challenges and also the challenge of building a product with hopefully “smooth” and beautiful UI/UX - as my day job has been very enterprisey lately. App is currently sitting at 1,000+ users of which a handful are active and using it for: Automated open graph images, User generated content e.g. reviews or new e-commerce listings to social media graphics The app consists of four tools:
1. API: each layer (e.g. text / image) that is added in the image editor can be changed with the API.
2. Spreadsheet: Add a row in a spreadsheet and create an image from the row content.
3. Form A simple visual way to create multiple resolutions at once + can be shared.
4. Zapier integration for no code automations. What makes it unique: Easy to generate images for multiple resolutions / sizes for each template. Cheaper, funner (and faster?) than the alternatives. Best tech choices:
Next.js + Vercel serverless functions - fast and great development experience. react-moveable for the image editor itself. Checkly for API and e2e tests - super easy to use and setup. Biggest technical mistake:
Firebase and firestore: huge bundle size + reading and writing to firestore is just too slow + it’s hassle to get it to work with Next.js and SSR. Obs:
Signing up for an account is required for the API but there are two open demos: one for generating OG images and one for generating device image grid. |