How I built a browser-based photo collage maker

When I started building a browser-based photo collage maker , I assumed the hard part would be the canvas work. It wasn’t. The harder problem was designing a workflow that actually matched how people think when they make collages. A lot of existing tools fall into one of two extremes. They either feel too generic, like a blank editor that expects you to do everything yourself, or they feel too template-heavy, where you spend more time fighting presets than actually arranging your photos. I wanted something in between: simple enough to start fast, structured enough to feel useful, and flexible enough to fit real output needs. So for the first version, I made one decision that shaped the whole product: I would build around layouts first, not templates. Starting with the smallest useful version It was tempting to build everything at once: layouts, templates, themed pages, use cases, marketing flows, and dozens of starting points. But I’ve learned that “everything at once” usually creates