We're here! But how did we get here?

It was 2020. There was a global pandemic. The whole world in lockdown. Everyone was at home, staring at their ceilings (and walls), thinking the house could really use some more wall art...

Inspired by the many cool sound wave tools and etsy stores we started Printawave.

We knew we wanted something better. Something to wow visitors, something to spark conversation. Not knowing exactly where the road would lead, but it had to be great.

The technical implementation turned out to be way more cumbersome than expected. Looking back at roughly 2 years of development time, iteration after iteration and feedback after feedback session. It still wasn't good enough!

We spent hours tweaking presets, working tirelessly adding new features we (think) you will like, need and want. We feel that Printawave is something cool, something new. And something we're VERY proud of. We have so much to talk about, tell you how we built the store, how everything fits together. We will. Just not right now ;)

It took us countless times to get to a point where we are now. Ready to go live. 

 

How is Printawave a different Soundwave Art Store?

Printawave is super different from other Soundwave Art stores. First of all, it's built from scratch. Everything. After we had our first version, we rewrote the entire application, and then once more. We want our poster customizer to feel rich, complete and easy to use. Printawave is What you see is what you get. That's what we stand for.

Printawave is different because we enable you to create unique personalized designs effortlessly. Advanced image techniques like changing backgrounds with your own images, or overlay an image onto the soundwave, combined with an easy interface. When you are looking to put something beautiful on your wall it should feel like a piece of art. It should feel complete. It should feel as easy as ordering a regular poster or piece of art from any online store.

Printawave lets you browse other designs too, created by other contributors and visitors. We show some information on where posters were created too (taking your privacy into account of course)! These, and countless other little details make Printawave into what we believe is a truly unique experience that begins with creating and ends with unique art on your wall, door, or anywhere you think fits a print!

Printawave thrives when there are people creating posters. So we encourage you to try creating a soundwave poster for yourself.

  

What features does Printawave have?

We try to be as feature-complete as we can, but it's tough to cram so many buttons, sliders and switches into something you can still use and don't have to have read an entire manual before you get it. We have literally moved all the buttons and features twice during development, and opted to keep all the advanced controls together right now, so if you're feeling experimental, you can go wild. 

At the same time we do not want to scare people with a massive panel of buttons, knobs and sliders. ✈️

While it may feel dead easy sometimes, you probably want to make small changes to your poster. Moving the text a little higher or lower, changing fonts, colors, adjusting the waveform itself. Finding a balance is one of the many things we've struggled with these past years. And I think we have room for improvement. There always will be.

Hint: You should totally try to move the soundwave while you're in the editor just by clicking on it ;)

 

Presets

We have spent a lot of time to create what we call presets. These are predefined settings in the editor to create beautiful posters with the click of a button.

The presets offer an easy way to get started. Try out some and see which ones you like or dislike. (Musical)Taste is very personal, so not every preset will appeal to everyone.

 

Customization

There are about 50 buttons, switches and sliders you can use to change your poster until it looks just right. We'll dive deeper with some examples in another post, but rest assured, you can't break anything, just play with the settings, try something crazy, and work your way to your truly unique personalized poster!

One feature I especially like about Printawave is the use of image masking and our image blending techniques. You can really go nuts when you design a poster.

What matters more is what you like, so if you think we should have different styles, features or in general want to drop us a note, use our contact form and don't be shy!

 

Previewing

When testing and showing our test users, most of you wanted to "see" the poster in action. It's not easy to figure out if your poster fits your interior. We know. Same goes for poster sizes. Who can actually imagine the sizes on their wall? We'll help you with that, our preview should give you a very close and good indication of the actual size when you order it. We're very proud to have this feature, and I really hope we can extend the feature to help you get a better idea how a poster fits your house or style.

When you go to the Frame and Size section of the editor, you'll see a preview, experiment to move the poster to a great location to get a good feel for how the poster would look like in your room.

 

Now it's up to you

So. This is it. We've launched. And now we hope you will like our little baby as much as we do. We hope you'll have an amazing time exploring, creating and showing us your designs.

Keep us posted and please, 

Play that song!