Hi Everyone! 🙂

Over the summer and the past two semesters, I have been shying away from traditional art, and moving more towards graphic and digital art. With this comes a learning curve! I have been trying to find my own “groove” for working digitally, trying to find what works best for me. Here, I’ll be outlining my favorite apps and websites that I like to use while designing and working digitally.

To preface, I use all of these apps on my Apple IPad 10th Generation, with an Apple Pencil.

1. Procreate

Probably one of the most well-known IPad apps for creating, Procreate offers hundreds of brushes and different specs so you can make what you need. Procreate is a one-time purchase for $12.99. It is definitely worth it for the price. It is VERY user-friendly, beginners to professionals could use this app. It has continuous auto-save meaning you will never lose your work, you can even use it offline (perfect for using on a plane)! Procreate offers a layer system very similar to applications like Adobe products (Illustrator, Photoshop), making it even easier to organize your work. The canvas’ are “Ultra High Definition” which goes up to 16k by 8k on compatible devices. This isn’t just a drawing program, you are able to add interesting, and different effects as well, such as “Glitch, Chromatic Aberration, Bloom, Noise and Gaussian, Motion and Perspective Blur”. One of my favorite features is the time-lapse replay feature. When you’ve finished your work, or while still working on it, Procreate automatically time-lapses your entire project! Meaning you can watch a video of you creating your work from start to finish. You can export your work as many different file types. Procreate supports, PDF, JPEG, GIFs, PNGs, PSD, TIFF, transparent PNG, and more! I love using Procreate, it makes the creative process so much easier. The only downside I have found as a graphic designer is that it is not a vector program. I often find myself sketching out ideas first on Procreate, and then transferring to something such as Illustrator to create in vector. If that’s not the case, I still am able to create in the size that I want and draw directly in the app. It’s really a great app – it’s super easy to use, and very affordable compared to other apps. Below I have added some of my favorite pieces I have created using Procreate. 😀 (they will enlarge if you click on them!)

2) Adobe Illustrator for IPad

A program all graphic designers know and love, Adobe Illustrator! Personally, I just discovered that there was an IPad version of Illustrator! You can get a subscription for $9.99 a month, though I’m sure they probably offer a student discount code. Or, if you already have a Creative Cloud subscription, you can connect that to the app. They also offer a free one-month trial with everything included. It’s definitely a little difficult to navigate since I am used to using Illustrator on a desktop but, for the most part, it is VERY similar and simple to use if you already have prior knowledge using it on a desktop. I haven’t been able to explore too much on the app version, but one of my favorite features so far is the pencil/paintbrush tool. It is a little different from the desktop version. The pencil tool allows you to draw freeform lines using your finger or stylus. When you finish the line, you can still use the anchor points to adjust your lines. It’s very interesting and seems like it will be very helpful. I’m looking forward to continuing to explore this app and see its advantages. Below I attached an example of a previous work I created using Adobe Illustrator.

3. Pinterest

While this isn’t necessarily an artists app, it’s still very useful. As we all know, sometimes you get artist’s block, and there is nothing you can do about it. My favorite thing to do is scroll through Pinterest and look for inspiration. It’s very simple to use, and it’s free! It’s technically a social media site, so there are millions of different photos there uploaded by different people. I love Pinterest so much. One of my favorite ways to get inspired is by viewing other artworks. It makes me want to create even more when I see all the beautiful work that others create. When working on a specific project, I try and shy away from using Pinterest, or any other forms of inspiration to try and spark my own ideas. But when I am really stuck, or just want to appreciate other work, I find myself heading here. You can even see that I find some dorm room inspiration on here, Lol!

As always, thank you for reading. Only a few more weeks until we go back to school and I could not be more excited. I have had so much fun writing about whatever I want this summer and am excited to continue with Student Spotlights when the semester starts! 🙂