No matter where inspiration strikes every graphic designer can nowadays take note and make the most of it. The advent of amazing apps and the increasing power of mobile phone processors mean that the average graphic designer has a whole range of great software and tools no matter where they are.
We’re going to take a look at some of the great apps that are available for that graphic designer’s favourite, the Apple iPad. Of course, these apps will also work on an iPhone too – so there are plenty of options no matter what Apple device you have.
These apps allow people to take note and develop their graphic design ideas on the go in a manner that was once only available on quite powerful computers – amazing what a tablet can do.
It’s always good to be up to date with the best apps available currently and that’s what we’re going to take a look at now.
Adobe Ideas
Adobe Ideas works wonderfully with the designer’s best friend – Adobe Illustrator. The app allows you to work on vectors on the go and in a multi-coloured manner. The app itself is pressure sensitive, which is a very exciting addition. The app is currently available on Apple’s AppStore and is the perfect addition for drawing on the go. Beware that uploading and downloading files can be quite data heavy.
Whatthefont
Aside from the interesting name, this app is a very useful one for the always on graphic designer. It allows you to simply take a photo of a font and then the app will identify it for you, meaning you’ll be able to use it when needs be, not matter where the need strikes you.
FontBook
The app is constantly updated with new fonts from 134 different international foundries. There are almost 750,000 font types on there and a variety of ways with which to find them – searches by year, designer, foundry, genre, style and period are all available among others. It’s a quite comprehensive list of fonts that should keep even the best designers interested for the long haul.
Design Duet
It’s not really possible to carry all your work with you on your phone or tablet – this is what design duet is for. If you’re caught short without a Photoshop image you can simply use the app to connect to your desktop and download it. You can’t edit the image via the app, but it’s ideal for showcasing if it’s suddenly required.
Adobe Kuler
Yes, it’s another Adobe app, but it’s certainly one worth having if you ask us. Kuler allows you to simply extract colours from images and will create a palate around the extracted colour. It also works with images in your library too, meaning you can extract and create colour wheels from images there also. It’s a great app and one a lot of graphic designers would profess that they can’t live without.
Skitch
Owned by Evernote and a great tool for taking notes, Skitch is a fantastic way to take notes in a variety of manners. Write down information on photos, images or elsewhere and save them to the cloud. The app is also part of the Evernote family, which means not only is it of very high quality, but there’s a smorgasbord of other options to complement it. The app’s also free – which is always a great thing if you ask us at Fusewave.
Sketchbook Mobile
A great app for painting and drawing, Sketchbook Mobile has a number of fantastic options for designers including layers, a range of brushes, colour wheels and others. It’s a pretty cool app and very powerful. There’s a pro version too that offers a load of extra more sophisticated functions too.
Quark DesignPad
Layouts are often the key to success when it comes to design and Quark is the king here allowing you to create layouts for postcards, invites, brochures and a whole lot more with the press of a touchscreen. There are all sorts of extras and manners with which to insert shapes and boxes and it’s a free download with a variety of ways to export your completed or semi-completed project.
iDraw
This vector graphic and illustration app has all the vector basics you require as well as gradients, RGB colour picker and a number of text styles. There’s also a Bezier pen tool and it’s easy to create shapes with custom paths too. The grid system is great for proportion and aligning items on screen and it works with DropBox too and supports a range of files.
For graphic designers it’s so important to be right up there with the latest techniques and software and by downloading these apps you will have no problem not only doing that, but also being able to work on the go.
About the author
Cormac Reynolds has written for a variety of websites in this area and is a lover of great design and great apps. He enjoys his work as a marketer.
