New Yorker Cover Boosts “Brushes” Sales

Nicole Martinelli ()

New Yorker Cover Boosts “Brushes” Sales

After Jorge Colombo’s iPhone art was featured on the cover of the New Yorker, it seems everyone wants to get their fingers in the pie.

The Brushes app Colombo used to finger paint a late-night scene in Manhattan sold 2,700 copies when the cover debuted Monday, earning slightly over $13,000.  It usually sells around 60-70 copies a day.

“A painting app seemed like a natural fit for the iPhone,” 32-year-old Brushes developer Steve Sprang told the NYT Bits blog.  “You’re touching the screen, so it’s a natural step to want to draw on it.”

Sprang said the results dwarfed when Brushes was chosen as the app of the day on iTunes and that the app had sold 40,000 copies to date, earning him six figures.

If you’re itchy to get busy with fancy fingerwork, Sprang has knocked the price down a buck, to $3.99, in honor of the New Yorker cover.

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Via Bits

3 comments »

About the author

nicole_martinelli

Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on Twitter , Facebook and Google+.

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  • The Idiot

    Yep, I rushed out and bought a copy because of the cover. Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean I can draw. DAMN.

  • jeffharris

    Yeah, I’d seen this app earlier and been tempted to buy it. Seeing this cover and articles about it, pushed me over the top.

    It’s actually quite nice, with simple controls and options like brush widths and a transparency slider. You can layer and “blend” colors on screen. I can do watercolory effects quite easily. You can even edit or paint on images that are on your device. Cool. It’s well worth the few bucks

    Too bad the iPhone/iPod touch lack a pressure sensitive screen like a WACOM tablet. ;^)

  • Carlos Santos

    Jorge Colombo was a well-known illustrator here in Portugal (the country where he was born), 20 years ago, he used to do a lot of work for magazines and newspapers, even comics (traditional materials, watercolours and pens). Then I lost contact with is work, to find out that today he’s “american”, I mean, i saw a news coverage video, stating that he was a local artist (new-york) and he’s world-know, by he’s drawings with the app brushes… Funny situation…

    CS