Design app Stampsy launches today

A new content sharing platform for iPads, created by Russian developers in Moscow, launched on the App Store today. Stampsy enables users to produce professional-looking online publications with slickly designed drag-and-drop tools to create “digital stamps” that can be shared across social media platforms. In the future users will be able to purchase more complex templates and integrate third-party effects.

The company is the brainchild of entrepreneur Roman Mazurenko, the former cultural director of the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow. In an interview with Wired.co.uk, Mazurenko explained that Stampsy users could create well-designed content without building entire websites or buying expensive design software. “This is about self-expression beyond Twitter and Instagram,” he said, adding that he hoped people would refer to “stamps” in the same way they would a tweet.

In her review of the app, Wired journalist Olivia Solon said she was impressed by the responsiveness of the site but frustrated by the lack of layers. “You can’t send any objects back or bring them forward or reframe images within the app,” wrote Solon. “Nor can you import text directly from, for example, Google Docs. You have to copy a chunk of text and then paste it in, or type it out directly into the text boxes — this is fine for image captions, but a little clunky for longer text.”

In a press release out today, Mazurenko said: “These days everyone’s got a story to tell and the web is full of people who want to show their content to the widest possible audience. What’s missing is a way to organise and share this rich media material in one place ... We think it’s time everyone had access to the means of media production, so Stampsy has been carefully designed to be accessible, intuitive and highly efficient.”

The app, which took around a year to develop and is free to download, received investment from internet moguls Yuri Milner, founder of Russia’s largest free e-mail service Mail.ru, and Pavel Durov, founder of Russian social networking site VK.