Show HN: Illustrio – Search, customize and download illustrations | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Illustrio – Search, customize and download illustrations

app.illustrio.com

112 pointsraphdg35 comments

  > © illustrio 2016 - Patent pending

What are you patenting?

We've built a CSS based language to enable designers to easily make their SVG graphics dynamic and customizable. You're right though, it makes no sense to put it there while it's pending, I'm removing it. Thanks for asking!

I thought software patents weren't a thing any more...

Can you tell us your rationale for patenting this "CSS-based language"?

Wouldn't it be the same rationale for any patent? To protect your intellectual property?

Well sure, but obtaining a patent is no small thing (if done seriously). So I'm curious why they feel it's so important to protect this.

Basically I'm wondering if it's just a purely defensive move, (maybe an investor asked them to file a patent or whatever), or whether they are aiming for a business model where people create things using a language that they control and can obtain fees for its use.

Of course they don't have any reason to share this info with us at this point.

Very cool! I initially thought it was just color swapping, but the percentages section in particular is fantastic.

Led by the CTA arrow: http://i.imgur.com/odtBsuE.png, I clicked on "Illustrations" first, which I actually think is the weakest example of cool customizability. Percentages and Words are both more compelling IMHO.

Thank you for the feedback. The percentages stuff is my favorite too. And you're right, I'm moving down the arrow CTA :)

I'm not clear on the licensing here. Are all files under the "illustrio license", and why does the summary that pops up seem to say something different than the detailed license text? I would be much more comfortable with a standard license being used - say, the Creative Commons licenses. At least let users filter their search by license terms, unless they're all under the same terms in which case that should be clearer.

I like the idea of being able to customize, but is that simply changing the colors? Or is it the ability to commission edits to the work? If it's just color changes I have trouble seeing the value; if it's substantial edits to the work then the pricing looks too low and the license terms are too restrictive.

Basically, what does this offer me that the Noun Project doesn't, except far more restrictive licensing terms?

Thanks for the feedback. The illustrio license applies to all graphics. What differences have you noticed between the pop up and the detailed text? We might need to clarify if anything is unclear right now. Also, you may customize other things than colors by playing with the inputs in the left side-bar under each "product". Try to play with the slider under Percentages for example. You need to click on Percentages first.

Ah, it's only in some categories. That is definitely a neat feature now that I see it. Unfortunate that the licensing makes this something I can't use. I'd never get your license text past the legal team at my day job, and almost all of my side projects are FLOSS. Plus, having a policy of never using anything that I can't either own the rights to or use and modify under a permissive license makes my IP management so much simpler.

The summary license says that you can't redistribute the graphics. Admittedly, I'm used to licenses such as GPL where including the file in an app's package file would be "redistribution" - it looks like you mean "no redistribution of JUST the graphics file" which could perhaps be clearer.

Also, the license seems really concerned with not putting any of your graphics in a theme or template. Why is this? I'd consider offering a licensing option which permits this, perhaps on a different pricing structure.

You say can't use in/on a paid product, but can use in a paid service. That's confusing because I'd think of my paid website service AS my product - I think you might mean "no use on physical goods for sale" which is another restriction I don't particularly understand but okay. Again that might be something to offer an option for.

All good points and we certainly need to clarify a couple things. The reason why our license is restrictive is because we target non-designers who are generally not making a living out of design. This way we can offer our own pricing and not compete with all the already good icon and graphic providers out there targeting designers. It happens non-designers are also happier with our limited editing features than Adobe illustrator's for instance. Hope it makes sense.

This is a very good idea. Are you planning to make it marketplacable? So that there can be creators of SVGs as well.

Also, right now, when I look at the pricing section, only an empty modal dialog shows up (el capitan, chrome, ad blocker off).

Thank you! We're currently working with a few designers in private but we're working on tools that would enable designers to upload packs of .svg graphics and make them automatically customizable on our platform.

I'm having a hard time trying to reproduce the modal bug although you're not the first one to report the issue. I'm working on it!

edit: typo

For what it's worth, I just checked and the pricing dialog works now.

Weird. Thanks anyway :)

Also ran into the pricing modal issue when I clicked through to one of the designs [1]. Using OSX Chrome 50.0.2661.102

[1] https://app.illustrio.com/detail/percentage/55803bfd7ca4ca2e...

It should be fixed by now :)

Looks good.

I'm getting the following very abrupt error (which I assume is caused by a content-blocker) and then the site fails to load.

  AlgoliaSearchJSONPScriptErrorError: <script> unable to load due to an `error` event on it

Tweaking content-blocking fixes this and all works fine, but just to report that the alert() popup is a bit abrupt.

The app still needs a lot of error handling love. Thank you for the report.

"All packs are valid for 12 months."

What does that mean? Can the illustrations only be used within that 12 month period?

No. If you buy a downloads pack, you have to use them within 12 months. After that period, they expire.

But once the illustrations are downloaded, you can use them as long as you want.

edit: for clarity

Perhaps you should say "Must be downloaded within 12 months; perpetual license lets you use them for as long as you want."

Indeed good point, thanks for that!

I can see myself paying for this to improve my next presentations, the value proposition is really good!

I'm not sure of the business model for big customers though, the gap between 100 and 5000 downloads being huge. Maybe unlimited downloads would be better, maybe not, only time will give you an answer.

Indeed, we had to came up with a pricing based on the few customers/users we already have. But I agree that the gap may seem inaccurate.

I was interested until I realised you can't get the icons in SVG. Why use raster images for icons? SVGs are smaller, crisper and always the correct resolution.

Nicely done! Can actually start using this service immediately ;)

How easy would it be for Illustrio to take requests for specific illustrations from the community?

Cool! Currently we don't have the tools to accept requests automatically. Still, we're closely monitoring the search terms/expressions users make that return no (or close to no) results.

We try to be as reactive as possible, so feel free to contact us (bottom left of sidebar) and ask for what you need!

We clearly did not expect such a traffic from HN. The download requests are stuck for the moment, sorry for that! We're working on it.

Nice.

On signup - there is a field labelled 'company' that validates as an email address. I'm guessing the label is wrong.

Indeed thank you! edit: Are you referring to the placeholder "Your company email..." in the signup modal? If it's the case, we're planning on creating a color scheme automatically from the company's logo. Currently, it can be done by picking colors manually from any logo the Clearbit API can find. Try to create a new color scheme :)

Maybe I didn't spot the word 'email' in "Your company email..." but I swear it just said "Your company"...

This is like Clipart, but better, and for the internet. Loving it!

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