My teenage daughter loves rock music — rock, indie rock, emo, anything loud and emotional.
Like a lot of people on TikTok, she enjoys making “favorite album” collages as a way of documenting what she listened to each month.
But a few months ago, she came to me with a very specific complaint:
“Topster doesn’t have the heart-shaped template everyone uses on TikTok.
Why is everything just simple grids?”
I checked, and she was right.
The classic Topster tools haven’t really evolved:
3×3, 4×4, 5×5 grids… and that’s basically it.
No modern templates, no auto-save, exports are low-res, and mobile experience is rough.
So — as any parent who is also an engineer might do — I built what she wanted.
I didn’t intend to turn this into a product.
It started as a small tool built because my daughter wished something existed and I thought:
“This is small enough that I can build it for her.”
But after sharing it with a few friends, I realized a surprising number of people use album collages as a kind of music diary.
It’s a fun little intersection of engineering, music culture, and personal memory.
I’m sharing it here in case anyone’s interested in:
how it’s built (Next.js 14, Tailwind, Supabase, server actions, DOM-to-image)
UI/UX around visual memory tools
ideas for improving it
or if you simply enjoy music and want to create your own end-of-year collage
Feedback is very welcome — especially on performance, template design, and export quality.
And if you have suggestions for new shapes, I’d love to hear them. My daughter probably will too.
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Show HN: I Built FavMusic After My Daughter Wanted a Heart Album Template · HackerTrans
But a few months ago, she came to me with a very specific complaint:
“Topster doesn’t have the heart-shaped template everyone uses on TikTok. Why is everything just simple grids?”
I checked, and she was right. The classic Topster tools haven’t really evolved: 3×3, 4×4, 5×5 grids… and that’s basically it. No modern templates, no auto-save, exports are low-res, and mobile experience is rough.
So — as any parent who is also an engineer might do — I built what she wanted.
The result is https://favmusic.org .
What I built
FavMusic is a modern, web-based album collage maker. All the things we always wished Topster had, I tried to implement:
Modern templates
3×3, 4×4, 5×5 (Topster-style)
Heart 13 template
Heart 15 template (the TikTok one my daughter wanted)
Heart 27 template More shapes coming soon (stars, circles, “timeline boards”)
Auto-save
Your collage is always saved locally while you build it. You can add albums slowly, over weeks or months — a feature my daughter really likes.
High-resolution export
No more blurry charts.
Public share pages
Each collage optionally gets a shareable link:
https://favmusic.org/share/xxxxx
Works on desktop and mobile
A lot of users build these on their phones.
Why I’m sharing this on HN
I didn’t intend to turn this into a product. It started as a small tool built because my daughter wished something existed and I thought:
“This is small enough that I can build it for her.”
But after sharing it with a few friends, I realized a surprising number of people use album collages as a kind of music diary. It’s a fun little intersection of engineering, music culture, and personal memory.
I’m sharing it here in case anyone’s interested in:
how it’s built (Next.js 14, Tailwind, Supabase, server actions, DOM-to-image)
UI/UX around visual memory tools
ideas for improving it
or if you simply enjoy music and want to create your own end-of-year collage
If you want to try it
https://favmusic.org
Feedback is very welcome — especially on performance, template design, and export quality. And if you have suggestions for new shapes, I’d love to hear them. My daughter probably will too.