Show HN: Github for Designers

Really liking this. I'd be curious to hear how you've approached the storage problem?

Are the full files for each revision saved? Or have you developed a way to store only the differences?

With large PSD files, the former could get expensive quickly, which makes me wonder the same thing as ARolek asked, what will pricing be based on?

I went into the demo expecting more of reapplication of git workflow (with some sort of staging area equivalent) for design, but after playing around with the demo it's clear the combination of auto-saving and milestones is both simpler and more elegant. Amazing work guys!

Oh cool, just last week got the same intent to do this, after someone mentioned layervault.com in the comments.

Version controlling for design is great but if you want to differentiate from layervault or pixelnovel.com then you should try and see if designers would collaborate in an opensource fashion, ala github. (I am really curious about this, as that's the real reason people use github AFAICT) So I would go and add some social aspect for it, make it a bit more like dribbble, behance, flickr (portfolios, inspiration) as these are the sites that designers use. Also adding stockphoto/illustration selling and job board features would probably make for the best designer platform ever. (not mentioning the business options...)

And after this feature suggesting madness, I would like to point out that if you want to keep this simple and stupid, then still please get a designer and work on the ux.

Keep up the good work!

* But when designing in photoshop, theres rarely a need for a full version control system since I usually only have 5-6 PSDs of each iteration per design (or logos/sites/etc) and at that scale its easily manageable.*

I feel like the word "version" means completely separate things to a programmer talking about (d)vcs and to a designer talking about mockups. To a programmer, version control is more likely to mean revisions of the same file as it evolves and is changed. To a designer, a version is a distinct mockup that represents a new look.

(Sure, a programmer may rewrite something, and a designer will tweak something. But, even then. Different words are used to describe what took place.)

Hey Kerry,

Thanks for your feedback! We've talked to a few designers and it seems like everyone has a slightly different workflow. There are definitely people who manually save different files as you do and some more hardcore designer/developers who use git to manage versioning. We think there's a middle ground in between where you don't have to think about versioning and it just happens in the background.

We've hidden it in the demo but we've baked in collaboration as well. You can create a group for your team or even show it off publicly, a bit like Dribbble. The benefit of using Pixelapse is that you can learn how a design was created from start to finish. Like you said, not all designers necessarily work with other designers, but there's definitely collaboration and conversations with managers or developers or other stakeholders who may not be design/tech savvy. We want to save you from the cycle of exporting the psd, emailing the copy to a bunch of people, getting feedback and having to repeat as you incorporate the feedback. We're still thinking about different ways to expand and move forward and doing a Dribbble + Github may well be where we ultimately end up. :)