Shapical X is a mobile photo editor that allows users to add customized graphic objects to their photos and create complex effects, including neon, pixelation, and color distortion. It was inspired by the beauty of geometry and provides users with an opportunity to overlay a simple 2D shape on a photo.

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Early Development

Shapical photo editor was created by a team of three college students who shared a passion for geometry. They wanted to create a mobile photo editor that would stand out from many others that were gaining popularity at the time.

At that time, most photo editors had almost exactly the same set of tools: filters, frames, flares, and basic color adjustments. The idea for the new project was to be different. Instead, they wanted to give people an opportunity to overlay a simple 2D shape on a photograph.

After 10 weeks of development, the app appeared in the stores. In the first month, Shapical was featured among the Top New Free Android Apps, and it made its first $500 with 4,000 active users at the end of the month.

📌 Soon, the team of three college friends became the Sixhands development company, and Shapical photo editor became their key to the IT industry.

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Challenges

With the first success came the first challenge. The Sixhands Apps team lost count of times they sent copyright infringement notices to Google in 2017. They also had to deal with ripoff apps which were blatantly copying not only Shapical X’s functionality, but also code. Some of them had hundreds of thousands of downloads. What added to their frustration was lack of cooperation on Google’s side. Sometimes clone’s removal process was quick, but sometimes Google would deny their request without comment even in the most obvious cases of copying.

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Features

Shapical included several key features that make it stand out from other photo editing apps. The app allowed users to add fully customized graphic objects to their photos and create complex effects, which include neon, pixelation, and color distortion. Users could edit the added objects, change the layer’s settings add effects or apply a mask. They could also add a second figure or an additional image. The layer functionality could be accessed using a menu in the upper part of the screen.

Shapical X also made a partnership with Unsplash to give users unlimited access to the collection of free photographs from all over the world. The photographs from Unsplash appear right after users open the app and can be a great source of inspiration for creators.

Shapical was evolving constantly. After lengthy discussions, it was decided to keep the name Shapical for the new version of the app, and just add an X for distinction.

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Results

After the release of Shapical X in September 2018, the app has been constantly evolving. Apart from the original set of objects fills and effects, now there are more photo editing capabilities that are not limited to using geometric shapes, for instance, combining and mixing images. The team introduced even more great features to Shapical X in 2020, and they were pleased to see what their users make with it. People are the key: they are and always have been their biggest inspiration of all.