We build at the intersection of art, code, and joy.
Joy Code is a creative lab where craft meets code — designing products, systems, and stories that turn imagination into infrastructure.
• DIGITAL TOOLS
• MEDIA EXPERIMENTS
• iOS APPS
• ART
• CODE
• JOY
• DIGITAL TOOLS • MEDIA EXPERIMENTS • iOS APPS • ART • CODE • JOY
LAUNCHING SOONIlsee
The darkroom, reimagined.
Ilsee™ is a new kind of darkroom experience — fun, accessible, and designed to spark the artist in everyone. Join the mailing list to get updates as we build, an invitation when the public beta opens, and a heads-up when Ilsee is ready to ship.
What if your iPhone could make a darkroom print?
Ilsee transforms your digital images into physical archival photographs using your iPhone and the timeless craft of traditional darkroom printing.
There's something special about making a photograph with your hands. The light. The paper. The chemistry. Watching an image appear. But you shouldn't need a dedicated room and a giant enlarger to experience it.
So we’re building Ilsee.
Get early access
Join the list to follow along and be the first to know when the beta opens and when Ilsee is ready to ship.
Why is it called “Ilsee”?
We were inspired by one of our favorite photographers, Ilse Bing. Learn more about Ilse, known as “Queen of the Leica,” here.
THE TEAM
Lia Ballentine
Lia brings the vision — shaping the design, storytelling, strategy, and human-first philosophy behind every Joy Code experiment. With a background in communications, brand building, and entrepreneurship, she believes beautiful systems can change how people feel about their own creativity.
Brandon Ballentine
Brandon brings the code — an iOS developer and black-and-white photography nerd who builds the technical experiments that bring Joy Code's ideas to life. He's obsessed with tools that feel as good as they work — especially when they connect the digital world to something you can hold in your hands.
Joy Code is built on our years of experience across technology, entertainment, media, and creative industries.
ABOUT JOY CODEA creative operating system
At Joy Code, we build creative ecosystems. Some become software. Some become hardware. Others take shape as stories, media, tools, or experiences. Each is a small experiment in possibility.
We work across disciplines, always asking the same question:
“What happens when joy becomes part of the system?”
PROJECTS IN PROGRESS
Project Elos
With the Elos iOS app, you can use your iPhone to illuminate physical negatives, bringing another kind of analog process into the Ilsee system.
Public Beta — Winter 2026iOS appPhotography
Project Yumday
Mercury is in retrograde and apparently it’s National Churro Day — and Yumday has thoughts. From snacks to the stars, your daily cosmic food horoscope is coming soon.
Launching 2027iOS appFood & FunSTAY IN THE LOOPFirst to know.
No noise.
Sign up for infrequent, high-signal updates on Joy Code projects, launches, and experiments. We only write when we have something real to share.