What’s new

NEW FEATURE: Studio Sections

Your Studio can now hold more than one kind of work, and it’s time to give everything a little more room to breathe. With Studio Sections, you can organise your Studio into separate spaces for different projects, processes, interests or bodies of work. Think of it as having multiple chapters within one Studio, each with its own focus, rather than everything living in one continuous space. Whether you’re separating client projects from personal work, collecting research alongside finished pieces, or documenting different parts of your creative practice, Sections give you a little more freedom to organise things your way. Studio Sections are available to Friends of Lylac. I’m really excited to see how you use them.

Activity centre filtering

You can now filter through your notifications in the activity centre to see the different updates you have across Lylac. You can sort through your likes, follows, comments and notes (new the studios), contributions, etc.

STUDIOS LINKS SECTION

You can now add a LINKS SECTION to the top of your studio. This sits above the main grid of posts so it won’t interfere with your layout or main body of content. Automatically takes the atmosphere for your studio. Max 2 links for now. For premium users only.

Would you like Lylac on Android? 📱PLS VOTE 👇

I’d really like to know how much interest there is in an Android version of Lylac. If you have a second, please vote below. It’ll genuinely help me understand whether Android should be something I prioritise next. (I’m also testing this awesome new POLLS feature that will be rolling out publicly for you all to use very soon) ⭐️🫪🍧

Introducing Lylac Flowers

Flowers are a new way to unlock parts of Lylac simply by helping the community grow. Invite friends to Lylac and, as they join and become active, you’ll earn Flowers. Each Flower milestone unlocks something new, from additional customisation options to new creative tools across the platform. Some features will always remain part of Friend of Lylac, while others can now be unlocked through Flowers, giving everyone more ways to personalise and grow their creative space over time. You can find your Flowers, see your progress, and invite friends from the new Invite Friends section in your profile. Can’t wait to see your gardens grow.

Profiles on the web

Starting from today, profiles are now accessible on the web! Studios are already there and there are already loads of creatives using their studios as their link-in-bio, and now you can use your profile as one as well! Genuinely think this is way more helpful as a link-in-bio because your profile holds all your public studios; so all your portfolios, projects, diaries, and sketchbooks are accessible in one place. Remember everything you do in the app, whether on your profile, or in your studios, gets automatically synced with the web versions! Super easy and convenient ⭐️🍧🏇

Copy someone’s studio atmosphere!

If you like someone’s studio atmosphere, you can now copy it to your “MY THEMES” directly from their studio page! At the top of the particular studio you like, tap on the new button “✨🎨” and you’ll be asked if you want to copy that studio’s atmosphere. By copying, those exact studio atmosphere settings get added as an option to your “MY THEMES” (accessible in the atmosphere wheel when you go to edit one your studios). You can also go through your “MY THEMES” and get a glimpse for how it would look if you were to add it to your studio page. This feature is free, but only friends of Lylac can apply their MY THEMES to their studios. Free users can still choose from the vast array of preset options. 🏇🍧

You can now edit text posts! 💬📚📝 To edit your text post, go to the text post in one of your studios, tap on the “…” button in the top right corner of the page and then on edit post.

New sheet to describe Lylac

To anyone who doesn’t understand Lylac, or simply needs a refresh on what the point of lylac is, I’ve added a new button in the top left of the “MY STUDIOS” tab that opens a sheet dedicated to explaining more thoroughly the thought + function behind lylac. ⭐️

Updated user list pages

Pages that shows lists of people like the follower list pages and the creative tag list pages (tap on a create practice tag on someone’s profile to view everyone else on Lylac who has that tag) have been updated. Honestly I think it makes Lylac so much nicer. Not only is the content for every profile now fresh and always up to date (cool infrastructure improvements), but the user’s profile theme is now carried through. So if you set an image background, a different text colour, a glass effect etc, your user card throughout Lylac will now display your theme!

When adding new posts now, you no longer have to add a title, you just have to have at least one piece of content to prevent blank posts from being created. So for image posts, just an image/images is fine (no title needed). For text posts, either add a title or a description - either or is allowed. And for links, adding just the link is fine, and lylac will go off automatically and generate a screenshot of that particular link. No title necessary. Of course, add titles and captions to whatever you want to post if you like. Your studio, your choice ⭐️⭐️

How many people are visiting your Studio?

Everyone on Lylac can now see their Studio’s visitor count, giving you a better sense of how people are discovering and engaging with your work. Friends of Lylac can go a little further and see who’s visited too, a simple way to spot familiar faces, new connections, and people taking an interest in what you’re making. Another small step towards making Studios feel more like real creative spaces: somewhere people can drop in, look around, and come back to.

Notes and Appreciations

We’ve added two new ways to interact with Studios on Lylac: Notes + Appreciations. I’ve always liked the idea that a studio on Lylac should feel a little like a real studio, somewhere you can wander into, look around, say something to the person working there, and leave again. Notes are a way of doing that. You can now leave a note directly on someone’s studio, rather than having to comment on a particular post inside it. Ask a question, share a thought, say hello, or tell someone what caught your attention. We’ve also added Appreciations . They’re Lylac’s version of saying I like what you’re doing here, without turning everything into likes, scores or a popularity contest. Over time, Appreciations will also help us surface Studios that people across Lylac are particularly enjoying and make discovering interesting work a little easier. Both are deliberately quite simple. The idea is just to make studios feel a bit more alive, less like static profiles, and more like spaces that other people can actually visit and interact with. Have a wander around and leave someone a note (or an appreciation) :)

Edit + Delete posts

You can now edit and delete posts on Lylac. Editing works across all post types, so you can go back and update text, images, links and audio posts whenever you need to. And if you no longer want something in your Studio, you can now delete it entirely.

Free studio customisation

The newest Lylac update is out today, 12th August 22:00, and every free user can now fully customise one Studio of their choice. 🌷 Until now, full Studio customisation has been a Friend of Lylac feature. We wanted everyone on Lylac to have the freedom to make at least one Studio completely their own, whether that’s your portfolio, creative diary, sketchbook, archive, moodboard, or something entirely different. As a free user, you can now explore all the customisation options in any Studio you own. The first time you save your changes, Lylac will ask if you’d like to choose that Studio as your lifetime free customisation Studio . Once you confirm, that Studio is yours to customise as much as you like, forever. Just choose carefully, as your free customisation Studio can’t be changed to another Studio later. Friends of Lylac can continue to fully customise as many Studios as they like. We’re hoping this gives everyone a little more freedom to make their space on Lylac actually feel like theirs. Have fun with it ⭐️⭐️

Your feedback shapes Lylac

If you have any feedback, or notes on how we can improve Lylac to be better for artists, designers and your creative practice, let us know and we’ll try our best to bring it to life. Lylac is a breath of fresh air for creative people. It combines a really easy and accessible way to create powerful portfolios, creative websites and dedicated digital studios spaces for us to use for our work, ideas, and wider practice. Want to start a competition? Make a studio for it. Want to showcase your work as its own website? Make a studio for it. Want to organise your projects and send them out to clients? Make studios for it. The versatility of Lylac is something that i’ve been perfecting for years now, and that’s the point, because as creatives, our work is so varied and dynamic. We don’t fit in boxes, so we make our own. If you’d like a feature, or you’re not happy with the way something works or looks on Lylac, let us know and we’ll be on it. Lylac is a community platform, and we’re in a unique position to shape Lylac around your needs. Don’t change yourself to fit the platform, we’ll change the platform to fit you.

Crop profile pic

You can now crop your profile pic + move it around as needed when adding one! Just head over to your profile > edit profile > profile pic! 🏗️🏘️🏕️🏜️

Link in bio button in studios

As means to communicate how studios can be your link-in-bio because you can post photos, texts, and links + are extremely customisable ( so much better than link-tree!! ), I’ve added a new button to the top of your studio page. This new sheet, I hope, helps to better frame this, with dedicated buttons to copy and share your studio, so it’s easier to access and understand for new users. :) 🏇🍧🔗

New “Ideas” tab

I’ve added a new Ideas tab to the My Studios page, a small place to help you get started, or find something new to make. Inside, you’ll find suggestions for different ways to use Lylac: things you could post, collect, build, share, archive, ask, show, or experiment with in your studios. Lylac is built to be flexible: your studio can be a portfolio, a sketchbook, a moodboard, a project archive, a research space, a collaboration space, a website, or something stranger and more personal. Ideas is there to open that up a little and to give you prompts, directions and possible starting points for your own creative space. You’ll find it in My Studios → Ideas. 💡

You can now zoom in on photos! Zoom in, drag it around… they’re not immovable anymore!

Updated profile customisation

The profile page now has a new “atmosphere’ button next to the ‘edit profile’ that allows you to customise your profile in an easier, more intuitive way. You might recognise this UI from the studio page, as I think it’s a better move to favour consistency in ui ux choices throughout the app instead of confusing everyone with new design systems. Check it out, add a theme to your profile and personalise your profile page, just as you can your studio ⭐️⭐️