PicMonkey is a leading online image editing platform that empowers users to create stunning visuals with ease. Known for its user-friendly interface and robust suite of tools, PicMonkey caters to a wide range of creative needs, from photo editing and graphic design to social media content creation. Acquired by Shutterstock in 2021, PicMonkey continues to innovate and expand its offerings, helping individuals and businesses alike enhance their visual storytelling and engage their audiences more effectively.

The brief.

Although the end of Flash was set for late 2020, all major browsers started disabling it mid to late 2018. By then, PicMonkey had to seamlessly migrate hundreds of thousands of users to the new platform. The project rapidly unfolded as a multifaceted scheme in which various tools and technologies were used, and more and more of our services were needed—from designing the software architecture to developing for web and mobile. Aside from maintaining and improving the existing platform and launching the new one, we were also working on the relaunch of PicMonkey’s mobile apps.

The solution.

As PicMonkey’s sparring partner we managed to maintain an old platform, launch a new one and relaunch their mobile apps. This includes not just implementation of features like auto-save, subscriptions and single item purchases, in-depth tracking and analytics, but also 3rd party integrations, unit and integration testing, automated bug detection and quality assurance in general. After the successful relaunch, wo continued developing new features and assisting PicMonkey further in their expansion as a leading image editing and design platform which ultimately led to Shutterstock acquisition in 2021. Thanks to our agile workflow and continuous integration, all of our projects were realised on time and within the budget.

The outcome.

What initially started as a maintenance and improvement of an existing (flash-based) web platform turned into a project of a significantly larger scope. In addition to simultaneously building a brand new WebGL platform we also relaunched PicMonkey’s mobile apps, thus enabling them to fully harness the potential of a modern technology stack.

Some of our milestones include:

1. Successful launch of the new platform before leading browsers disabled Flash by default (starting mid to late 2018)

2. Successful launch of new mobile apps to offer state-of-the-art mobile experiences

3. Successful deprecation of the old platform (January 2021).

4. Further design and tech advancements and integration into Shutterstock ecosystem.