Stories for Letterboxd
Over 6,500 active users and a growing number of subscribers.
- Developed by
- Gianpiero Spinelli Raffaele Di Somma Edoardo Galati
- Deliverable
- iOS and Android
The app turns a Letterboxd film, list, review or profile into an Instagram story. It first came out in 2021 and got a major update in late 2026.
6,500+ Active users
Asking for access that isn’t usually granted
Letterboxd keeps its API closed. I wrote to them asking for brand permission and for access, and they gave me both. Everything the app does depends on that conversation going the way it did.
Publishing, not exporting
Most apps of this kind generate an image and leave you to save it, open Instagram and post it yourself. I integrated the Instagram API instead, so stories are built in layers and sent straight to Instagram. It sounds like a small difference, but you notice it every time you use the app.
The review story
Reviews vary wildly in length. A two-line reaction and a six-paragraph essay both have to become something readable inside a nine-by-sixteen frame.
Instead of forcing one layout to handle both, I designed several. At least one fits a full review of any length by shrinking the type as far as it can. The others set a limit and cut the text after it, so the type stays at a size people will actually read. Users pick the trade-off they prefer.
An editor shaped by the people using it
The in-app editor started out limited on purpose. Most of what it has now came from user requests, like more typefaces and different text alignments.
The app launched on iOS only, and Android came later for the same reason: people asked for it.
