Happy Mother’s Day! / May 5th

Happy Mother’s Day from Picnik!Forget all the stress of cheesy greeting cards and too-slow postal travel times by making your favorite mom (or moms, or grandmoms, or favored aunt, or particularly maternal father) her (or their, or his) very own personalized, hand-made Mother’s Day greeting with our new selection of Mother’s Day shapes!

Whether a delicate bouquet of flowers or a super-bad tattoo on your arm declaring your devotion, just add a little text with your own personal message and sit back and wait for her (or their, or his) eyes to well up in misty gratitude.

Because, admit it, the ones you make yourself are more meaningful anyway.

Photobucket For All! / Apr 22nd

Team Picnik wants to congratulate Photobucket on the launch of their new Open API, and we’re thrilled to be right there with them as an official launch partner!

Photobucket logoNow any developer can create an application to seamlessly bridge with Photobucket for simple, secure access to photo albums. For instance, all five billion, one hundred thirty four million, four hundred thirty thousand, one hundred thirty nine (and counting!) photos on the internet’s biggest photo storage site can be seamlessly accessed, made perfect with our editing tools, made awesome with our special effects, shapes, and text, plus put in customized frames, then saved them back to Photobucket without ever leaving Picnik.

We here at Picnik are always looking for easy and fun ways to make perfect photos and want to thank Photobucket for helping us bring that ease and fun to as many people as possible, and we wish all you Photobucket users out there happy Picniking!

Picnik prints Postcards and jet-sets to Europe! / Apr 8th

Qoop!Why settle for just having hilarious cats on your t-shirt\mug\canvas prints? Wouldn’t your awesome Picniked photo be so much better? We think so! Picnik has partnered-up with the clever QOOP (cue-oop!), allowing you to shoot your creation straight to QOOP and direct to your new mouse pad. You ask, “Dude, where and how?!?” Under the Save&Share tab you’ll see Print Photo… then all the cool QOOP options. Clicking one of their options (prints, postcards, key chains, disks, calendars, more, more) will deliver you to QOOP with your current open picture (and your Photo History… coming soon!).

Photobox!Not one to rest on any single project at a time, we also decided to go international in a big way becoming PhotoBox.com’s new killer photo-editor. Completing their picture (sorry) with storage, sharing, publishing and lots of other photo-coolness. If you’re just about anywhere in Europe, you’ve got to have heard of these sharp guys: Photobox.fr in France, Photobox.de in Germany and Photobox.co.uk. Picnik runs in those languages too, but you already knew that. Finally, hold on to your hat\hut\chapeau\capello for their coming releases all across Europe!

ID Mag 2008 Awards / Mar 26th

We are thrilled to announce that Picnik and Peter Roman (Picnik designer and all around nice guy) have won the prestigious I.D. Magazine 2008 Annual Design Review in the Interactive category! Yeah! We’ve known for a long time that Peter and the rest of the team sport some mad design skills, and now it’s official.

ID Mag!Who are these ID Mag folks anyway? It just so happens that in the world of international design, these guys really know their stuff. ID Magazine has been running this annual juried competition now for over 50 years. That means that a panel of expert designers tapped Picnik to be the winner in our category from over 2000 entries overall. And we’re in great company, as two of our faves also won: Apple’s iPhone and Seattle’s own Olympic Sculpture Park brought home ID 2008 honors. The awards will be published in the July/August edition of I.D. Magazine.

In an semi-related matter, Picnik is looking for another Designer to join our team. Please send your resume to contact@picnik.com.

p.s. Traffic is up a whopping 55% this month - it’s not just the ID mag folk who are digging on Picnik!

Introducing Picnik Premium FontShop Fonts / Mar 26th

FontShop!Given the fanatical font geekery here at Picnik World HQ, we’re thrilled to finally announce that we’ve unveiled our brand new and exclusive offering of 15 fonts from FontShop®, available only to Premium Picnikers. This collection of typefaces from the FontFont® library was hand-picked just for our users and represents an incredible selection of truly professional, quality fonts. In fact, if you want to use these fonts without the incredibly affordable Picnik Premium membership, you’ll be paying thousands of dollars. No joke, they’re that awesome.

So, without further ado, here’s the list:

FF DIN
FF DIN - Cool, crisp, minimal. Albert Jan-Pool’s skillful reworking of the official traffic type of Germany (DIN stands for Deutsches Institut für Normung, or “German Institute for Standardisation”) will work in any setting, and has been used on ABC’s World News With Charles Gibson, MTV Latin America, JetBlue Airways, and Adidas.

FF Meta
FF Meta - Erik Spiekermann’s humanist typeface is considered by many to be groundbreaking, and the most influential sans serif of the digital age. Designed to be readable and sturdy on a small scale (it was intended for Deutsche Bundespost, to be easily legible on postage stamp scale) and in large letters (or on a mail truck), it can be used for a look that’s both modern and approachable, as has the Stockholm Metro, Imperial College London, Environment Agency of England and Wales, and I.D. Magazine.

FF Meta Serif
FF Meta Serif - It took three years and three designers to create this sturdy serif companion to Spiekermann’s FF Meta. Ideal for a classic look or longer passages of text.

FF Tartine Script
FF Tartine Script - This natural, flowing script drawn by Parisian font designer Xavier Dupré is at home on both greeting cards and cans of gourmet soup.

FF Erikrighthand
FF Erikrighthand - The handwriting of Dutch designer Erik van Blokland is bold and legible and yours to pretend ownership of!

FF Pepe
FF Pepe - Give your images a vintage, personal touch with the elegant award-winning script by Spanish designer Pepe Gimeno.

FF Brokenscript
FF Brokenscript - Get in touch with your inner Berliner with Just van Rossum’s interpretation of old German type. Known as a “textura blackletter”, FontShoppers might affectionately call it “heavy metal”.

FF Market
FF Market - H. A. Simon’s script is the kind of casual freestyle lettering you’d see price-pointing produce or refrigerator markdowns.

FF Providence Sans
FF Providence Sans - The basic print letters of a child are often the most human and legible. Drawn with youthful care by Guy Jeffrey Nelson.

FF Oxide
FF Oxide - The letters found on shipping containers, warehouse walls, and military munitions can now be found on your pics, thanks to celebrated New York designer Christian Schwartz.

FF Cocon
FF Cocon - Curvaceous and organic, the type of Dutch designer Evert Bloemsma has become synonymous with “Web 2.0″.

FF Marker Fat
FF Marker - Legit graffiti can’t be made with a font, but Thomas Marecki’s typeface from FF Tag Team gets you pretty darn close.

FF Confidential
FF Confidential - Just van Rossum’s deliciously damaged homage to industrial typography, FF Confidential is good for advertising, displays, or flyers for anarchist organisations.

So check them all out, and let us know what you think!

Happy Easter! / Mar 21st

Easter’s come early this year, but we’re on top of things with a whole slew of shapes to help you photographically celebrate this happy and festive spring day! There are Easter lilies and chocolate rabbits, Easter eggs and the chickens that laid them, and everything else you’d need to embellish your Easter Egg Hunt, Easter Basket Opening, Easter Brunch, kids dressed in their Easter Sunday Best, or anything else that could be improved with jelly beans and peace doves.

Happy Easter from Picnik

Picnik <3’s MySpace / Mar 13th

It’s true: Picnik is now on MySpace! All kajillion MySpace users can now access photo-editing superstarpowers at myspace.com/getpicnik. And stay tuned, we’ve got some special MySpace-only features cookin’ in the oven.

Picnik hearts MySpace

Don’t forget to add us as a friend!

Sláinte! / Mar 3rd

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day (and the fact that this past weekend was our biggest ever, smashing the record for our previous biggest weekend ever), Picnik’s gone from grass green to kelly green! We’ve got everything Oirish in our Shapes: shamrocks, flags, pots of gold, rainbows, harps, hats, and of course, everyone’s favorite perfect pint.

St. Patrick’s Day Picnik!And don’t forget to click on our green-like-the-hills-o’-Ireland link to vote for your very favorite web-based photo-editor in the Publishing & Photography category for the Webware 100!

Now we’ve done all that with plenty of time to get down the pub. Pionta Guinness le do thiol!

(That means “Pint of Guinness, please!”)

Picnik Evolves / Feb 27th

Picnik began life with one purpose: Bring photo editing awesomeness to everyone. We’ve approached this in three distinct ways: First, make it available to everyone, everywhere. Second, make it a joy to use. Third, make it cheap. Today, we’re unveiling significant changes to improve the Picnik experience in all three respects — and it’s all thanks to the feedback, support, and crazed fandom we’ve received from all of you.

Now all Picnik users will have full access to our huge range of edit tools, special effects, fonts and shapes that previously were only available as Premium features. Free users will have this largess supported by ads.

Picnik Photo HistoryFor a 100% ad-free experience and exclusive access to new Advanced editing tools, brand-new infinite Photo History, professional fonts from FontShop, Fullscreen mode, early access to new features, special partner offers, priority support, and much more to come, sign up for Picnik Premium for only $24.95 USD a year.

Why the change?
Picnik Advanced Editing ToolsWe want to make everyone feel like a photo editing superstar. Picnik is already the world’s leading online photo editor, but there are still a lot of people living tragic, gloomy lives believing that powerful photo editing tools cost hundreds of dollars, come in unopenable boxes, and are impossible to use. By offering an ad-supported version of Picnik, we can make much richer, deeper, and ultimately better photo-editing functionality available to more people around the globe: Photo editing awesomeness for everyone.

Picnik and FontShop!At the same time, we have a dedicated and ever-growing community of Picnik Premium users who’ve told us that they always want the highest level of Picnik functionality without ads. Above all, our goal is to make Picnik the best photo editing experience available, regardless of whether you support us directly or our advertisers do.

So, to break it down, here’s the new split between Premium and free:

  Premium Free
No ads ✓  
Advanced editing tools ✓  
Fullscreen mode ✓  
Exclusive content, including professional fonts from FontShop (coming soon!) ✓  
Early access to new features ✓  
Exclusive partner offers ✓  
Priority support ✓  
Perfect Memory ✓  
Photo History Unlimited 5 most recent
Easy and fast connections to popular photo sites and social networks Unlimited 1 at a time
Easiest and most fun photo editor in the currently known universe ✓ ✓
All the essential photo fixing tools ✓ ✓
Tons of creative effects, fonts, and clipart ✓ ✓
Instant and automatic feature updates ✓ ✓
Unlimited undo ✓ ✓
Browser plug-in ✓ ✓

If you’ve got any questions or suggestions for the future, please send us all the feedback you want through Picnik. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more updates — we’ve got some features coming that we can’t wait for everyone to see!

Happy Picniking!

Vote Picnik! / Feb 25th

Webware 100 2008We’re thrilled to see we’ve once again been nominated as one of the 300 lucky finalists for WebWare’s annual WebWare 100! Of these 300, only 100 can remain, and that’s where we need you!

Click here to vote for your very favorite web-based photo-editor in the Publishing & Photography category.