From design portfolio platform to creative community, Dribbble has undergone some serious changes over the years. It’s now running as a designer marketplace, matching designers directly with clients. The announcement on March 17, 2025, fueled international condemnation and public outrage. As a consequence, many leading designers, including Gleb Kuznetsov, the founder of the San Francisco-based design studio Milkinside, were blacklisted. With over 210 million followers, Kuznetsov’s account was deleted after he violated Dribbble’s new policy by sharing his contact information with potential clients.
Beginning in Sept 2024, Dribbble started down the exhilarating path toward a pure marketplace play. This fresh approach makes it mandatory for designers to process every transaction via the platform. Prior to this change, Dribbble primarily generated revenue by taking a 3.5% cut on client conversions. In addition, they had a Pro subscription service to bring in revenue. The new rules strongly indicate that all designers should be hiding their contact info. They can’t even share it until after the payment has gone through Dribbble’s secure marketplace. This move has drawn criticism from many in the design community who believe it undermines their ability to network freely.
Dribbble’s CEO, Constantine Anastasakis, who joined the company in April 2024 after a career at companies like Fiverr and Pond5, stated that the company aims to streamline the process for designers seeking clients. He noted that the revisions are meant to improve the overall experience on the platform, particularly for users conducting transactions.
The Impact of Policy Changes
We were starting to see a lot of unrest over these kinds of recent policy changes come from Dribbble’s user runners—about 750,000 approved designers strong. Since the new guidelines were announced, Dribbble has indefinitely banned dozens of designers from the platform for breaking these rules. Kuznetsov, who helped attract over 100,000 monthly users of the platform before his departure, previously worked with international brands including Apple and Google. Today, he is deeply disappointed by the new path the platform is pursuing.
In an effort to clarify the rationale behind the changes, Anastasakis remarked, “It went from it was optional to use our transactional features to it was required for non-advertisers to use our transactional features if they were on Dribbble to find clients.” He continued, “If a user is on Dribbble to find inspiration or to get feedback on their work…none of this affects them.”
Most designers do not think that the new limits on contact sharing help them to connect in a natural way. They report that this makes it difficult for them to form professional relationships.
Gleb Kuznetsov’s Next Steps
Now, after being kicked off Dribbble, Kuznetsov has taken matters into his own hands by starting to work on a competitor platform of his own. To that end he’s the co-founder of Maker House, an online marketplace tailored to designers. He’s aiming to get a minimum viable product (MVP) ready in as little as three to four months. Kuznetsov’s decision is emblematic of a larger trend among creatives who are increasingly looking to leave existing platforms and ecosystems for alternatives.
In discussing his vision for the new marketplace, Kuznetsov stated, “It’s not going to be a copycat of Dribbble.” He believes there is a huge opening in the space. There is a significant opportunity for platforms that cater specifically to designers while leveraging the latest technologies.
“It’s a big hole right now in the market. Everybody’s doing AI startups, but nobody’s really doing AI startups for designers,” he added. Kuznetsov imagines a platform that uses artificial intelligence to unlock new creative potentials and offer tools that simply weren’t possible before.
A Community-Centric Approach
In large part Kuznetsov is trying to make things better for designers who find themselves in a pretty scary and pretty intense environment today. To his credit, he recognized that achieving all that required strong community support and invested much effort in those pursuits. “I’m trying to do something good for the community because I’m a designer. And that’s why I understand the torture of being a designer in this world,” he said.
Anastasakis, addressing Kuznetsov’s ban, remarked on the implications of sharing contact information in violation of Dribbble’s policies. “There’s really no conceivable way in which he did not realize that what he was doing risked permanent suspension of his accounts,” he stated. He further suggested that Kuznetsov may have thought that his status as a high-profile designer would exempt him from consequences. “I think that ultimately it was that he believed that we wouldn’t take action against a designer of his caliber,” Anastasakis explained.
As both Dribbble and Kuznetsov navigate this evolving landscape, the design community watches closely to see how these developments will shape the future of online collaboration and monetization.
