What that means, exactly, is this: You cobble together a collage. (The app comes with images for you to play around with or you can upload your own.) Then you share it with your friends. They can rework your collage, take it apart to see how you made it, or simply marvel at the enormity of your talent with a proverbial "like." It turns art into a fun, group activity--and stands as a cheery rebuke to the stereotype of the artist as a tortured genius laboring alone in his studio. Mixel, Vinh says, is “a collage-making tool and a social network rolled into one.”
He got the idea after he sampled a slew of art apps in the App Store and left disappointed. “I asked myself, ‘Why aren't people using these more?’” he tells Co.Design. “I had downloaded several, but after trying them out a few times they languished on my iPad. And I went to art school, so presumably someone who doesn't think of themselves [as art-minded] would be even less motivated than I was.”