Today at Parrotprint HQ we’ve mainly been playing about with Instagram’s new app Layout, have you seen it? You need to download the app separately to Instagram as it’s a standalone app rather than an integrated feature on Instagram but it has been designed by the people over at Instagram to use alongside it.

You can read a post from the nice folk over at Instagram introducing Layout here. We’re pretty excited about Layout because it’s very good at creating photo collages, which you can then upload straight to Instagram or Facebook. As you can transfer your images to canvas straight from these social networks using our easy uploader, this means smartphone photographers who want to produce collate canvas prints can do so even more easily.

Of course, there are lots of other apps that also allow you to create collages in Instagram it’s just that this one happens to be free and has a few fun capabilities such as a photobooth option and custom layout selection, which gives you the ability to produce mirrored posts or fit your photos together at different angles. There are no borders or frames on the images so the result is clean-looking, making the photographs the focal point.

The app is the perfect way to create memoirs of outings, events and holidays – you can piece together a collection of birthday selfies, select your best holiday snaps or share every meal you’ve eaten on a particular day all at once. Then, if you want to immortalise your efforts with one of our lifetime guarantee prints, you just need to head to our easy uploader.

To celebrate Layout’s launch, we’ve been looking at how the app could help you create collage canvas prints for the home or your business. Here are just a few of our ideas….

Kids’ drawings

Whether they’ve been let loose on an in-phone drawing app or get all artsy with crayons and paper, you can piece together the perfect print of little ones’ artistic efforts using Layout. The best bits? Their work will avoid the curse of dog-eared-ness, you can leave the fridge door free for menu planners and shopping lists and canvas prints are a great way of covering up crayon marks on wallpaper!

Best bakes

Instagram users who have spent the day in the kitchen baking something utterly droolworthy are pretty likely to share it with their followers, so why not transfer all of your best bakes to canvas on one customised print? Best bake collages look great on kitchen walls but are also rather lovely to see on the walls of cafes and bakeries where they make a great selling tool.

Hairstyles

If you’re a professional hairdresser who shares their work on Instagram, Layout will help you create interesting posts that you can theme on hair trends to show off your talent. If you need some help selecting which ones you should turn into canvas prints for the walls of your salon, your followers can help! Just choose the ones that receive the most likes.

Makeup looks

If your brush artistry is more powder than paint based, Layout can help you create a portfolio collage to share with the world. You might want to share your day’s work on Instagram or to put together particularly looks on a theme, then transfer your image to canvas for display in your studio.

At the moment Layout is only available for iOS but they are currently working on making an Android version. Have you used it yet or do you use another collage app that you’re committed to? We’d love to hear (and see) your ideas!