An inventory app for instant photography.
Built by Edoardo, who shoots Polaroid and kept losing track of what was loaded where.
Project
Name
Instant Box
Deliverable
iOS · Design & development
Year
2025
At a glance
Role
Our own product
App Store
The problem
The problem it solves
A Polaroid holds one film pack at a time, and a pack holds eight shots. Photographers who own several cameras carry several film types at once, and then have to remember which pack is in which body, and how many frames are left in each.
Instant Box is the inventory. Add your cameras, track your film packs, assign packs to bodies, log the date of a shoot. The count lives in the app instead of in your head.
The process
Working with AI, and where it stops
Instant Box started as an experiment in AI-assisted development and ended up on the App Store. Prototyping was far faster than it would have been otherwise.
No design decision was made by AI. Every position, colour and element was designed in Figma first, then described or shown to the model, and often refined by hand afterwards. The custom icons for each camera type and the colour coding for each film stock came from that manual pass: they’re what makes the inventory readable at a glance rather than a list of names. They’re the human touches that give the app its personality.
Where it stands
Tested where it’s used
Because the app came from a real need, it was tested on actual shoots from the first build. A few adjustments came out of that, and it’s been in use ever since, published on the App Store and still maintained.
Let’s create
great things.
How do you work?
We keep things transparent and collaborative. We share updates consistently throughout the process, so nothing comes as a surprise. Weekly 1-to-1 meetings keep the work aligned and give space to review what's been done and plan what's next.
Why should I choose Heterochromia?
We work fast and we have an opinion. We don't just ask "what do you want?" and execute. We guide you through the process, challenge your assumptions when needed, and help you get to something better than what you imagined. Damn, we love what we do.
Do you do outsourcing?
Over the years, we have met a lot of talented people. Some of them work with us regularly on projects that require specific expertise.
What timezone are you in?
We are based in Milan, Italy (CET/CEST), but we work with clients in the USA and Japan with full flexibility.
