[paulyan]

I would still suggest trying. If you're not satisfied with what's offered, you can reject it, it does no harm. And Elancer has many options to try.

But if without trying, devs will never be able to make an satisfying icon (at least for me). We cannot stay there waiting for Apples to sentence the app's death.

[digitalengineer]

The danger in "trying" is you'll get something lots of other people might also have (with perhaps a little tweaking). Twitter did this as well back in the day and ended up realy regretting it. You can not protect your corporate identity if it's based upon unorigional work.

[paulyan]

Thanks @digitalengineer for this meaningful discussion. Yes we absolutely should build up our own design team. Blindly keep trying woundn't work either.

It's still the art of balancing. Trying various ways in the beginning, and at some time point, we should tight up all kinds of resources and build up our own for key resources. Design is resources with key value.

Compared with criticism about copycat or intentional confusion, I like your constructive suggestion. We're a young startup and Padgram is our baby. We might not be doing well but we've tried the best. And we're sharing what we learned.

[digitalengineer]

You're on HN so I'd say your doing quite well! Keep it up, just keep improving. Heck, just look at twitter now! Theyhad a shutterstock design as well. All in good time...