Want an easy way to sharpen your visual effects skills? I can think of two ways: get your After Effects on and give yourself some Wolverine claws (get it? sharpen?) or just use your handy-dandy iPad for everyday practice. The second one sounds a little more practical.
Just like the iPhone, the iPad has a ton of great apps that designers can use to create new work or just brush up on their skills. The best way to stimulate your creative mind is to use it regularly, and the iPad is a pretty revolutionary tool in terms of keeping that mind sharp (get it? sharp, again? tired of the sharp thing yet?), allowing you to get your reps in at home, on the road, or in Starbucks.
Here are some apps that every designer should consider.
(Source: digitalartsonline.co.uk)
This app from Autodesk, Inc. is one of the best drawing programs out there because it feels like it was designed specifically for the tablet. It’s not ported or adapted from a desktop program like Photoshop, and the tablet-only interface gives it a naturalistic feel (well, as natural as drawing on a glass screen can be). That means pressure sensitive brushes and a display that focuses almost exclusively on what you’re drawing, not toolbars.
(Source: inki.st)
Inkist is currently free. I don’t have to explain that benefit to artists, since it sometimes feels like we’re 99 cents away from homelessness. It’s also a useful app that takes a different tactic than Sketchbook Pro bvy giving you all the tools up front, so you spend less time navigating menus. And Creative Bloq points out another difference from most design apps:
In the app, which is based on its Mac cousin, you build up layers of colour and flatten them down on the background rather than relying on multiple layers. Although it might not be to everyone’s taste, for many traditional artists, this will be real benefit.
(Source: apple.com)
This is a cool app with a specific purpose. You never know when inspiration will strike. If you have an iPad, your natural instinct will probably be to take a picture of said inspiration, so you don’t forget. Good thinking. Loupe complements this instinct by allowing you to zoom in and capture swatches of color for use in your eventual creation. If you’ve ever struggled to find Sky Blue or Gum Stuck On The Underside Of A Table Pink, this is the app for you.
(Source: apple.com)
Speaking of inspiration, Fotopedia is the place to find it. A crowd-sourced encyclopedia of stunning images, it was created by Jean-Marie Hullot (a former Apple bigwig) to let “photographers and photo enthusiasts collaborate and enrich images to be useful for the whole world wide web.” Apple named it one of the 50 best apps of all-time, and with over 30,000 high quality photos that are all free to browse, you won’t find any argument here.
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