Darkroom is known for its modern, [Apple Design Award-winning design](/blog/2020-07-apple-design-award), and its app icon is no exception. We thought it would be interesting to gain an inside look from Jasper Hauser, the co-founder and designer behind Darkroom, on the how and why he designs Darkroom's app icons.

### What's the story behind the two triangles logo?

Founders Majd Taby and [Matt Brown](https://thingsthatarebrown.com) designed the [original Darkroom logo and app icon](/blog/2015-02-introducing-darkroom-10) - the two mountains and purple gradient - inspired by the majestic Norwegian mountains near Bergen. The minimalist, silhouette-style design emphasizes the beauty of the landscape and provides a subtle reference to photography. It's easily recognizable and memorable.

### Why has the app icon changed over the years?

When Jasper took the reins of Darkroom's design with the 2.0 release in 2017, he set himself a challenge: to update the logo without sacrificing its essence. Aiming to make the app icon dynamic and creative, the core visual brand idea was to reflect the tool's ability to empower photographers. Inspired by brands like Nike and Apple who have stayed [loyal to their main logo shape but are always creative with their brand](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XfzA9KDF88), always reflecting their evolving style and our changing world. And let's be honest, we also really liked the idea of having a fresh new look on our home screen now and then.

App icon updates are also practical and serve as a beacon for customers, alerting them to a major update. Apple provides a blue dot, but honestly, a bolder approach - a shiny new app icon - is more effective for grabbing attention and letting customers know something exciting is happening.

<Figure
  src="/assets/images/posts/2023-01-app-icons-major-versions.jpg"
  wide
  alt="A grid of 2 x 3 Darkroom default app icons for all major versions"
  caption="6 major updates of Darkroom's default app icon, one family, very different personalities."
/>

### What drove each evolution of the app icon?

We love to shake things up with a new app icon for each major update. It's a great way to draw attention and add some fun. The icon should still be connected to the old one in some way, to keep a balance between innovation and consistency.

- **Version 1 and 2** of the app icon have sharp corners, in line with the prevailing visual design esthetics of iOS at the time. In version 2, texture was added and the colors softened to give the brand more depth and warmth.
- **Version 3:** The switch to photo-realism in the icon was a visual protest of the loss of visuals due to iOS 7 in 2013. The neon lights loosely referenced the red lights used in the analog darkroom. And, this major visual change matched the magnitude of the app update itself.
- **Version 4:** We wanted Darkroom to fit in on iPad, so we returned to a simpler, warmer aesthetic, where detail was provided by subtle, softer shading rather than photo-realism. The logo shape was also more rounded by giving the two mountains rounder corners, removed the gap, and had the two mountains overlap instead.
- **Version 5:** For our Mac app the app icon got a makeover referencing the colorful and bold [Aqua visual style](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_(user_interface)). The shape and color palette was kept similar to the main variants made for version 4, adding a glass-like texture, and making it feel like a big change by re-introducing the boldly colored frame.
- **Version 6:** The addition of Masks was a big deal in terms of creative possibilities. To reflect the app's ability to smartly select parts of a photo, the logo was enhanced with stars in the background and a warm, dusky color segmented gradient inspired by atmospheric perspective.

###  Why does Darkroom have app icon variants?

Around version 4, Apple had just released dark mode and other apps had begun offering icon customization as a premium feature. We decided to [introduce app icon customization](/blog/2020-02-watermark-subscription#app-icons), which included both historical default icon variants and new creative variants for [Darkroom+](/darkroom+) customers to pick from. And a small gourd of people wasn’t always a fan of our more recent app icon changes. App icon customization is a win-win - they get to personalize their app to express their own personal style and we get to flex our creative muscles.

<Figure
  src="/assets/images/posts/2023-01-app-icons-variations.jpg"
  wide
  alt="A grid of 5 x 6 app icons showing all of Darkrooms available app icon variants"
  caption="With 29 variants Darkroom provide a wide selection of unique icons for people to customize their home screen."
/>

### Are there any underlying patterns in all the icon variants?

Yes, all variants are thematically relevant and connected, referencing either a recent or historical visual style related to Apple's brand, something from our own history, or popular culture. They should be fun, creative, or nostalgic. Over the years, the logo shape has transitioned to be friendlier, bigger within the app icon's rounded rectangle, and the color palette brighter and more colorful. Texture and shading are used to make each variant distinct.

<Figure
  src="/assets/images/posts/2023-01-app-icons-posters.jpg"
  wide
  alt="Two posters on a wall side-by-sde, each featuring a large selection of released and unreleased app icons"
  caption="These two posters where presents given to the team, featuring all of our major app icon updates, as well as many sketches and variants."
/>

### How will the app icon evolve next?

We don't know what future holds for our app icon. We'll decide closer to the next major release. In the meantime we collect visuals, icons, color palettes, sketches and feedback to create an inviting, warm and visually appealing icon. Eventually, we choose the one that catches our eye. Stay tuned!

Darkroom's app icon has evolved over time, staying true to the original design while being creative and reflecting the changing world and user needs. Our commitment to design excellence and staying up-to-date reflects the app as a whole, and will remain the visual brand cornerstone for years.


Explore the design thinking behind Darkroom's app icon evolution. Learn why the logo and app icon have changed and the reasons behind each variation.

The art behind the Darkroom app icon


We are humbled to announce that [Apple has awarded Darkroom their prestigious Apple Design Award](https://developer.apple.com/design/awards/2020/) for Outstanding Design and Innovation. The team is over the moon to be recognised for the years of hard work and passion we have all poured into Darkroom!

> This comprehensive and surprisingly powerful photo editor comes loaded with all the granular controls and moody filters you’ve come to expect — with an elegant interface that truly lights the way. Its simple Curves editor lets photographers of all levels fine-tune light and color in an intuitive and artful way. Pros will appreciate Darkroom’s ability to batch-edit images, open RAW files, and create custom filters. In the crowded world of photo-editing apps, Darkroom shines bright.

During histories first online World Wide Developers Conference (due to COVID-19) the Apple Design Award was presented on the opening day, as millions watched online. The Apple Design Awards focusses on best-of-the-best applications and developers with an eye on excellence in innovation, design and technical achievement, making it one of the most sought after awards in the design and tech world.

<Figure
  src="/assets/images/about/dr-ada.jpg"
  alt="Apple Design Award, aluminum cube"
  wide
/>

This award means the world to us! This shiny solid little aluminium cube will always remind us that we should persevere. The business of software is extremely competitive, building an app like Darkroom requires amazing people, resilience, heaps of stubbornness, and a lot of time. We are very thankful to Apple for the recognition that very few receive, about 5-10 every year out of the 4.5 million apps in the App Store.

Apple also did an [interview with Majd about the design of Darkroom](https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=nxnjx66e). LAstly, we had some fun and recorded the teams reaction during the unboxing of our award.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Unboxing the Apple Design Award <a href="https://t.co/GdkqECpZ9c">pic.twitter.com/GdkqECpZ9c</a></p>&mdash; Darkroom (@usedarkroom) <a href="https://twitter.com/usedarkroom/status/1278378242336940032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

_The Darkroom Team_


Last week Apple recognised Darkroom with their prestigious Apple Design Award for Outstanding Design and Innovation.

Darkroom wins a '20 Apple Design Award


Three years ago to the day, [Matt Brown](https://twitter.com/brownthings) and I launched the first version of Darkroom. Thank you to all the photographers who have been relying on Darkroom week-in-week-out to edit their photos on the go, and a special thank you to those who have stuck with us through the years. Without your continued support and encouragement, it is not at all clear that we would be here to write this post.

[Jasper](http://twitter.com/jasperhauser) and [I](http://twitter.com/jtaby) recently finished our 6-month plan for the first half of the year, and we can’t be more thrilled about the things we have in store for you. Soon!

**Darkroom Stat-flash**

2017 was a very exciting year for us. The marquee launch of Darkroom 3 got a lot of attention and praise. What went unnoticed however, was a massive effort to understand the key metrics of our business, tuning them, and trying to make Darkroom a profitable business so we can survive and thrive. That work has manifested itself in our bottom line in a big way. If you would allow me this moment of vanity:

*   **In 2017, we were finally able to pay ourselves reasonable salaries, and STILL make a profit**! That means we can dedicate 100% of our time on Darkroom, rather than having to split it contracting or stressing out about money.
*   **We increased our weekly-active-photographer metric by 80% and our download rate by 50%** compared to 2016, all of which translated to…..wait for it:
*   **More than one million photos shared every single month!** — And a Darkroom session is started somewhere around the world every single second. Since launch, **nearly 32 million photos have been exported from Darkroom**.
*   **We increased our average App Store rating to a whopping 4.8 stars**, with thousands of reviews, and more coming every day.

I mean, look at this graph of our Weekly-Active-Photographers:

![](/assets/images/posts/1__5vhW9qs3j23RWV__irWNpxg.png)

Zooming out and looking at our data since launch, what’s remarkable is that soon we will average the same number of users _every week_ that we had during our initial launch, during which we were the most prominently featured app on the App Store for a whole week! Even more incredible? Almost half of the peope who try Darkroom every month use it every week.

![](/assets/images/posts/1__jn__nmTVPhKdyOw8LAP9Xtw.png)

If you’re in the business of making apps, you’ll know that among the most successful apps on the store, our numbers aren’t ground-breaking. We have a massive head-way ahead of us to grow. Truth be told, had we raised venture capital (which we almost did, multiple times), we could have built out our feature roadmap much much earlier than we did. However, it would have left us with a ticking time bomb on our back to liquidate or hit escape velocity.

We believe very strongly that we can and are in an amazing position to establish ourselves as the premiere photo editing app on iOS, and for our loyal user-base, we already are. But in order to do that, we need to be free from external forces that put pressure on us to prioritize what’s good for their bottom line, rather than what’s good for the collective bottom line of our users.

Starting a company is hard, there’s no going around that fact. Yet we times get tough, we remind each other: If we don’t push through and succeed, we’ll have to revert to using something else to edit our photos, and that’s not a world we want to live in, and it’s not an option we’re willing to force on our users.

Because we are bootstrapped and independent, **we have one focus and one focus only: Maintain Darkroom’s seemingly-paradoxical position as the most powerful, yet easiest, fastest, and pleasurable photo editing app on iOS.**

And boy oh boy are we excited about the next few months…
_The Darkroom Team_

Three years ago to the day, Matt Brown and I launched the first version of Darkroom. Thank you to all the photographers who have been…

Thank you, 32 million times over: Celebrating Darkroom’s Third Birthday


Let’s get to the fun stuff first: To celebrate Darkroom’s 2 year anniversary, we’re announcing a **30% sale across the board for 1 week only**. Open up the app, go buy all those filter packs and tools you’ve been putting off at a discount. **Hurry!**

We’re also sharing a new house-keeping update: Darkroom 2.6. It won’t impact your Darkroom experience much, but it addresses a bunch of issues some of our users have been dealing with and reporting. Here’s the low-down:

### Darkroom 2.6 Changelog:

*   When rotating an image that hasn’t explicitly been cropped the cropped area now remains the maximum size. Previously, the crop region would not rotate with the image.
*   The As Shot option in the Crop tool now properly resets to the maximum size.
*   The “Buy ProKit” flow has been updated to be less confusing, making it clearer you can either just buy ProKit or use our Limited-Time Offer to buy everything at a discount.
*   The on-boarding flow for new users got an update, making the whole process shorter, and making restoring your previous purchases much simpler.
*   In Settings there now is a Help section available with easy access to tutorials and frequently asked questions and our Darkroom Sunday School tutorials.

## Now Let Me Get Sentimental

On this day two years ago, Matt Brown and I got into work early and launched Darkroom after 8 months of hard work. We watched as country after country around the world lit up with little red dots marking the app being featured by Apple in the iTunes Store internationally, and validating our decision to localize the app in 11 languages.

![](/assets/images/posts/1__0IEJJ8hSyvaCAPYdd7s3cw.jpeg)

![](/assets/images/posts/1__JuAK9d3Zj3SF8LMdwSJNQg.jpeg)

The premise behind the app was two fold:

> Editing workflows are inefficient, and creative tools are limiting

Two year ago, Snapseed, VSCO, and Afterlight were the dominant players. In large part, they defined the space, and set its standards. But as iOS and the camera evolved, the needs and the scale of mobile photography exploded, and the tools remained stagnant. Darkroom was born out of our frustration with the status quo, and our vision for what mobile photography is capable of. Darkroom’s success has validated that our premise was true back then, and it continues to be true today.

That premise upon which we built Darkroom manifested itself in two ways: **No-import editing**, and **Custom Filters.** Apple recognized our innovation a month after our launch, when they named Darkroom the **Best App of February.**

Press coverage was unanimously positive:

[**Darkroom For iOS is The Photo App You Always Wanted**  
_Darkroom, a new photo app for iOS which was released today, hopes to bring some pro-level tools to the iPhone and…_thenextweb.com](https://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/02/13/darkroom-ios-advanced-photo-app-youve-always-wanted/ "https://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/02/13/darkroom-ios-advanced-photo-app-youve-always-wanted/")[](https://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/02/13/darkroom-ios-advanced-photo-app-youve-always-wanted/)

[**Darkroom: A New iOS Photo Editor with DIY Filters, Curves, and Infinite History**  
_Darkroom is a new photo editor for iPhones that just launched today. The app offers a number of powerful features for…_petapixel.com](https://petapixel.com/2015/02/12/darkroom-ios-photo-editing-app-diy-filters-curves-infinite-history/ "https://petapixel.com/2015/02/12/darkroom-ios-photo-editing-app-diy-filters-curves-infinite-history/")[](https://petapixel.com/2015/02/12/darkroom-ios-photo-editing-app-diy-filters-curves-infinite-history/)

[**Best New Apps: Darkroom**  
_A number of us here at The Verge are big fans of VSCO cam, myself included. But I'm never completely satisfied with the…_www.theverge.com](http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/12/8025141/best-photo-editing-app-darkroom-iphone "http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/12/8025141/best-photo-editing-app-darkroom-iphone")[](http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/12/8025141/best-photo-editing-app-darkroom-iphone)

Six months after our initial launch, after the dust settled, we got back to work on Darkroom 2. Truth be told, Darkroom 2 is what we wanted to launch originally, but we made the decision to space it out, validate our core propositions and assumptions before investing more deeply into the long-tail of features.

That’s why only six months after the release of the first Darkroom, we announced Darkroom 2, featuring a whopping **14 new features.** With its launch, we finally hit our initial goal: To give mobile photographers the same tools that filter editors use to create filters. They can become masters of their own style.

In December, when they named Darkroom a **Best New App of 2015** and featured it in their global **Make Something New** ad campaign.

![](/assets/images/posts/1__CdorBWRS7A4EXxzL9Gyrbw.png)

In a final show of support, Darkroom was installed on all iPhone across the world in Apple stores as a demo app.

## The Long Quiet

Whereas Darkroom’s first year was defined by activity, releases, tutorials, and awards, Darkroom’s second year has been defined by inaction and silence.

Darkroom at various points was either a two-man operation, or a one-man operation with advisors after Matt left the company. So, while Darkroom was going through all this activity, across the Atlantic, the migrant crisis was unfolding.

As a Syrian-American, I took it upon myself to document the ciris that was affecting my family and many of the people I grew up with. I enlisted the skills of my friend [Sara Kerens](https://www.sarakerens.com/) and we both spent 10 weeks to document the crisis in a [photo book](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1093122046/displaced-stories-from-the-syrian-diaspora?ref=user_menu).

During that time, I took a break from Darkroom. Truth be told, I anticipated the project taking no more than 3 months when I set out on it. Now however, 14 months later, I could not have been more wrong. In those 14 months, work on Darkroom all but ceased. I was consumed with the book and ensuring that we do justice to the project and the subject matter.

Yet despite this lack of activity, Darkroom has been extremely resilient. More than just that in fact, it has thrived. Writers continue writing about it. Photographers continue using it, and new photographers continue to discover how powerful and efficient mobile photo editing is with Darkroom.

[**The best photo editing app for the iPhone - The Sweet Setup**  
_For the past month, we've been experimenting with two dozen of the best-rated photo manipulation apps for iOS. It's a…_thesweetsetup.com](http://thesweetsetup.com/apps/best-photo-editing-app-iphone "http://thesweetsetup.com/apps/best-photo-editing-app-iphone")[](http://thesweetsetup.com/apps/best-photo-editing-app-iphone)

The trust that our early adopters have demonstrated in the product and the excitement that our new adopters share with us has kept our spirits high and our commitment strong.

## The Long Run Forward

There will be a longer-form article in the future to describe in more detail what the future of Darkroom will look like, but I wanted to use this opportunity to share a high level vision.

We’ve watched time and again mobile photo editing apps launch, find early success, and then ultimately go down one of two paths: The Kitchen-Sink, or The Social Network. The reason is quite simple: Economics. The economics of mobile applications are brutal. Depending on whether or not the developer decided to take on external venture funding, they either have to continuously release new in-app purchases, often resorting to novelty, or pursue hockey-stick user growth at all costs.

It is in our estimation that this ecosystem starves the market of useful, thoughtful, professional-grade tools that address structural problems in the life of professional creatives.

Bergen, the parent company of Darkroom which I started 2.5 years ago, has always operated under the following banner:

> Creative Tools for Creative Professionals

So often in today’s climate, creative professionals are left behind as the pursuit of growth gradually opens up the target audience and tries to make something everybody wants. In the end, we have tools that do many things nobody needs.

We do not divide the world into consumers and professionals. We divide the world into **professionals** and **aspiring professionals**. We want to enable professionals to do their job well, efficiently, and consistently. Similarly, we want to enable aspiring professionals to elevate themselves by lowering the expectation gap.

![](/assets/images/posts/1__B__a51qtXwhpcQV5ebM__1qA.jpeg)

This philosophy will continue to manifest itself in Darkroom moving forward, and I can’t wait to share more about this vision with you in time. Meanwhile, expect more regular updates as we pick up the pace again.

Until the next time, happy editing!
_The Darkroom Team_

Let’s get to the fun stuff first: To celebrate Darkroom’s 2 year anniversary, we’re announcing a 30% sale across the board for 1 week only…

Craft

The art behind the Darkroom app icon

Darkroom wins a '20 Apple Design Award

Thank you, 32 million times over: Celebrating Darkroom’s Third Birthday

Darkroom’s 2 Year Anniversary Celebration