Every worthwhile journey has its ups and downs, but what's important is the drive to keep moving forward. It's this exact sentiment that has helped us reach a very important milestone on our journey with Drawing Desk.
This month, we celebrate 10 years of your favorite art app! Yes, its been a decade of inspiring creatives to bring out their inner artist through the Drawing Desk app!
So if you've ever wondered how Drawing Desk came to be what it is now, here's a quick look back on the app's humble beginnings, and its rise into the spotlight.
Creating the Right Artistic Platform
Our adventures with Drawing Desk began in 2013 when we launched the app on the 23rd of January. Our intention back then was to produce a creative app for adults and children, that would encourage them to be creative with the right digital tools.
In its humble beginnings, the app featured just 2 modes: Pro Mode for regular drawing and Kids Mode for children's art. But soon the app's 'Desk' structure was introduced which brought in Kids Desk, Sketch Desk, Doodle Desk, and Photo Desk. Moreover, Coloring Desk was included much later in 2017.
One of our biggest updates for the app came about in 2021. Our team worked hard behind the scenes to update the app's Creative Engine and this significantly improved overall performance. This gave rise to Drawing Desk V 6.0. which allowed users to work with an extended Brush menu and a system of unlimited layers.
This update further opened the door for many other tools that we knew our users would love. This included the Symmetry Tool, Layer Transform Tool, Custom Canvas, Shape Library, and more.
By the end of 2021, we'd also included regular Drawing Challenges that encourage users to test their skills, and the Kids Arcade to help little kids learn through art.
Then in 2022, we began working more closely with Artificial Intelligence (AI). This led to the inclusion of our now-popular AI Colorization tool, and an improved Import feature, both of which now help speed up the creative process for our users.
Finally, we ended 2022 with yet another step forward in the form of Drawing Desk V 7.0. This brought about our collection of Drawing Courses for users to actively work towards improving their artistic skills.
Bringing Drawing Desk to Everyone
From the moment of its creation, we've always wanted to make the Drawing Desk app available for everyone everywhere. And for the past 10 years, we've worked to make this happen across multiple platforms.
After Drawing Desk was launched on the App Store in 2013, it was brought onto the Google Play Store (2014), the Amazon Appstore (2021), Huawei China (2021), and the Huawei AppGallery worldwide (2023). We also extended our reach into the world of VR, with Drawing Desk VR being released on the Oculus Store (2022).
To add to this, several of our Drawing Desk AI-powered creative tools were launched onto the web in 2023 so that our users could enjoy online drawing and editing too!
As a result, Drawing Desk has seen a steady increase in popularity over the years. By August of 2018 the Drawing Desk app had reached 16 million downloads. Since then remained among the top 5 apps on the US Apple App Store.
(Source: Sensor Tower)
Similarly, the app began climbing the Google Play Store ranks, remaining within the top 20 apps in the Arts and Creativity category since 2019.
(Source: Sensor Tower)
Later in 2021, Drawing Desk made a significant breakthrough within the China region, gaining a significant number of new downloads that saw increased revenue from the app.
Owing to a successful 2021, Drawing Desk easily exceeded 50 million downloads by August 2022. This was a further indicator of its increased presence in the world of digital art.
Where We Are Now
At present Drawing Desk is the second-best iPad app within the Graphics & Design category on the App Store. It also occupies the 9th position on the Google Play Store in the Art and Design category (Source: SensorTower).
(Source: Sensor Tower)
(Source: Sensor Tower)
Furthermore, the Drawing Desk app now runs on 3 main cloud operators - Google Cloud, Huawei Cloud, and Amazon Web Services. This makes it a more secure and stable space for digital art across multiple platforms. And, we've also worked to build native engines across iOS, Android, and the Web. All of this now ensures a steady future for our flagship app.
There's no doubt that the Drawing Desk app is now a far cry from its humble origins 10 years ago. Starting out with just a few basics, we've successfully broadened the app's horizons, making it the perfect app for digital art enthusiasts.
Encouraged by the successes of the past decade, we're super excited to continue our journey. And we remain determined to further revolutionize the digital art world with Drawing Desk!
