Sony Sketch

Hi there! Welcome to the Sony Sketch shrine. This is not an early internet relic, but I still think that this platform for artists still deserves its own page and recognition, even all these years later.

What was the app all about?

Sony Sketch was a simple drawing platform created by sony in the early 2010's. This app was supposed to be a very simple drawing platform with no room for advanced or complex features. It was created mainly to make simple drawings and stickers, but as the years went on, more and more artists were creating full pieces on the app. The first online features of sketch were private collaboration, cloud backup and a sticker store. The wide popularity of this app led it to get realeased on google play. When 2015 finally rolled around, a the sketch community was launched as a sort of way to display your art while also discovering other users drawings at the same time. I'll get into just how awesome the community feature further down the page.

The Shutdown

On October 3rd of 2019, the online functions of Sony Sketch were shut down, including the cloud backup, collaborations, and the community feature. A few days later this app was removed from the play and app store. Surprisingly, user activty did not decrease after the announcement of the shut down in April of 2019, in fact, it grew. During the last few months of Sony Sketch's life, about 1 Million posts were shared a week on the community tab. Some of the former employees of Sketch attemped to buy the app and continue it outside of Sony, but unfortunatly they were unsucessful. As of now, Sony Sketch is dead, and virtually nobody uses the app anymore because of the fact that the app will not be updated anymore and the app is not avalible on any app store. The only way to use this app is through apks.

My Experience with Sketch

I first downloaded sketch in mid-late 2017, and I used it very activlely until it was shut down in 2019. I was in 6th grade when I first downloaded the app so most of what I drew was my chemical romance, twenty one pilots, and doki doki literature club fan art, but I loved using the app. The simple interface was easy to use and helped me create peices of art without getting lost looking for tools or differant brushes to try out. I loved posting and scrolling through the community tab, as well as interacting with other artists. At the time of using the app, I didn't have very many friends and I didn't fit in at my school, but the sketch community always felt so welcoming, so on days I felt a little down, the sketch community provided escape and lifted my mood up. Sounds cheesy but during the years I was active on sketch, it meant to much to me.

The community

The community of Sketch was either the greatest or the most toxic place to be in its years of existance, or at least in 2017-2019 when I was on the app. The bad side of the community included a lot of art theft. The collaboration tool was a gateway for massive amounts of art theft. I remeber one time my friend used a base to create some awesome ddlc fanart post, but since her work was underneath that base's collaboration, anyone could take her work and repost it. This isn't the only time its happened either. Bullying and NSFW artwork was also a massive issue on the platform. THese issues are in most spaces in the art community though, so its not like sketch was the only place where these issues prevailed.

Although this issues turned some people away from the app, the community was great for young artists or artists looking to be themselves. Furry art, fandom art, and other art that was seen as "cringy" found a home on sketch, and was a place were people who had common intersts could come together. The community, where it wasn't toxic, was very supportive and helped young artists bloom in an environment filled with other artits who understood their position. All in all, this commmunity was a special place for artists in the mid to late 2010's and was missed dearly when it was gone. In the final few months of sketch I remeber many "rip sketch" posts were shared and collaborations that mourned the loss of sketch were everywhere.

Where is the Sketch community today

After Sketch closed down, the app Sketchers United appeared. This app functions just like Sktech, but the community is not nearly as active there as it was on sketch. It just wasn't the same as how sketch used to be. Most sketch users moved to other drawing platforms and social media platforms. There is currently an archive up with featured peices that were featured sketches previously selected by Sony. The sketch archive is here