5 iPad Apps for Graphic Designers
A huge part of being a successful and talented graphic designer is having the right tools at your disposal. In school, you will learn a wide array of graphic design techniques. You’ll also learn how to make the most of them with cutting-edge graphic design programs and apps. Because you never know where inspiration will strike, an iPad is a valuable tool. Load yours with the following graphic design apps to make the most of your graphic design education.
Paper by FiftyThree
Available for free from the iTunes Store, Paper by FiftyThree is one of the most intuitive sketchbook apps out there. Its specialized ink engine produces more natural results by reacting to the way your finger or stylus moves, which creates variations in line thickness and the like. In the past, you had to fork over extra money to access advanced tools. FiftyThree did away with that, so you can now avail yourself of Outline, Write, Sketch, Mixer and Color tools for free.
Adobe Color CC
This free palette app lets you collect and capture color palettes on the go. If you have a Creative Cloud membership, you can use all of the features for free. Formerly called Kuler, Adobe Color CC can be used to capture color palettes from the Internet, photos you just snapped or anything else on your iPad screen. It works seamlessly with Photoshop CC and Illustrator CC, allowing you to send color palettes, or color themes, as they’re called by Adobe, to your CC library. From there, you can grab them on your desktop or share them with others.
FontBook
Fonts play a crucial role in modern graphic design, so it pays to have access to as many of them as possible. For $4.99, you can download and install this impressive typeface library app, which includes samples of more than 730,000 typefaces from more than 145 type foundries from around the world. You can search for specific fonts, or you can browse by foundry, class, year, name or designer. When you run across fonts you like, add them to your favorites for use later.
Adobe Comp CC
Like Adobe Color CC, this app is available for free from iTunes, and you can access and use all of its features with a CC membership. Adobe Comp CC lets you create layouts for print, mobile and the web wherever you go. Intuitive and simple to use, it transforms drawings into accurate graphics in a heartbeat. You can then send the layouts you create to InDesign, Photoshop or Illustrator. As you’ll learn in school, layouts play a crucial role in effective graphic design, so an app like this is sure to come in handy again and again.
Astropad Graphics Tablet
For just $19.99, you can download and install this app to your iPad to turn it into a graphics tablet. Compatible with popular Mac applications, Astropad Graphics Tablet allows you to draw straight into Photoshop or other programs on your Mac using your iPad. Its exceptional pressure sensitivity makes it compatible with virtually all styluses, which is a major perk. Its most popular features include customizable shortcuts, palm rejection and pinch-and-zoom. In addition to Photoshop, this app is compatible with Corel Painter, PixelMator, Illustrator and more.
Conclusion
There’s no need to wait until you’re a graphic designer before using these apps. In fact, they are sure to make a positive difference as you work toward earning your graphic design degree. Dozens of others are out there too, so be sure to explore as many of them as you can.
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