MoFo Hackaton: The Story Of How Ikonica.Me Was Created
Yesterday, we talked about Ikonica – a nifty little app which helps designers preview their icon on any iOS device using their Mac. Well today we wanted to share a story of how it was brought to life by a group of young and talented people from Serbia, and how they organized a special in-house MoFo Hackaton in a matter of hours.
Their hackaton started on February the 1st and the plan was to spend the next 48 hours designing and developing an app. There were seven people in the team, with skills ranging from designers to project managers all the way to backend developers. Team decided to post regular updates on Appricot’s blog and they manged to have a livestream as well. Alongside blog posts, they also tweeted and posted statuses on Facebook which gathered a bit of a buzz – people wanted to find out what was going on.
After some sketching, designers went to work. Doing mockups for the app, team quickly decided on a name – Ikonica. As mentioned yesterday, this word stands for icon in Serbian. Not log after the mockups were done, Ikonica.Me was registered, and developers started working on the app. The icon was finished on the first day, and the work on the website started. Everything was going according to plan.
Organizing Hackaton In a Matter of Hours
We asked Igrol Salindrija, Appricot CEO and Ikonica project manager what was the main reason behind this app, and what made them organize hackaton in such a short time?
– We had this idea which we though could be very useful, especially to the all the designers out there since nothing similar exists on the market. We wanted to feel responsibility towards finishing the project in such a short time, which at first seemed impossible to handle. Also, we wanted to make sure that the quality of the app is up to par with our other apps we’ve worked on for much longer.
– In this kind of environment everyone’s contribution is valuable.Considering the fact that our work and progress is being published online, we want to influence other companies to start similar projects and initiatives. Everything you need is a solid idea, a lot of motivation and two days to spare.
By the end of the second day, everybody was exhausted but the app was finished and the website was up. A lot of happy, but tired faces. Although the app still has to go through the Apple in order to get approved, team is very excited and anxious to see their product out in the App and Mac Store. Creating a tool which helps others create their own thing, not that is something special.
If you want to see all the photos from live blog posts, you can check them out on the Appricot’s blog. Follow the team behind this awesome app on Facebook and Twitter and be the first one to know when the App is available in the store! 😀
