So about two years ago I uploaded a video onto this channel, all about the best mobile
apps for designers, listing 5 graphic design applications native to both Android and iOS
devices, which can help you to do a bit of creative design work on the go.
Now, upon rewatching this video myself, I have noticed, that 2 out of the 5 apps I recommended
back then are no longer available to download – so I thought, well, we can’t have that,
we need to update our little list, immediately…
Hey guys, welcome to our channel, the number one place for people who are into design art
n all things creative – you are watching DnB s channel, my name is Laszlo,
N in today’s video Im going to recommend you another 5 graphic design apps you can
use on your phone to make your life as a designer, just a little bit easier.
Just so you know, This video is not sponsored in any way shape or form, so while you will
enjoy my raw, unfiltered honesty here, - you can also rest assured that all of these apps
on my list are either free or have a usable free version, they work both on android AND
iPhones, easy enough to use, and most importantly genuinely useful – because I personally
got no patience for bloatware and advert filled, gimmicky software which forces you to buy
into their ecosystem for no good reason– I believe, these next tot the ones I mentioned
2 years ago are all worth installing onto your smartphone, OK?
Let’s do it:
App number one on my list is Adobe Express Now this is the mobile app that Adobe replaced
spark post with, the app I mentioned in my old video – which I was quite salty about
initially, cause I really liked the old app, but oh well, things change in this landscape,
quite quickly as you can see, hence I’m making this video!
The idea behind adobe express is very simple.
– this app is giving you a bunch of customizable design templates, which are mostly geared
towards making quick social media content on the go.
You choose on the top where the design will go to, you know Instagram story, youtube thumbnail,
and the likes, then you pick yourself a template, upon which the software lets you customize
the piece to some extent.
As you would expect, the paid version has the fancier bells and whistles, but I found
that you can do quite a lot of things with the free one as well.
You can of course, Customize all the copy, mess up the colour schemes, add or replace
some stock photography, or a bunch of additional vector shapes and assets to your design.
once your static composition is ready, you can even add some basic animation effects
onto your writing too.
If all of these functions sounds awfully familiar, well, you might have guessed what company
adobe is trying to complete with here…
Yeah – I really hoped that I wouldn’t have to use the C word in my design videos,
I avoided it the last time we talked about this topic, but you know what, the fact that
two years went by already n canva is still out there, in fact they are doing better than
ever - is proof that they have something going that we, the creatives of the world just can’t
ignore anymore: Most of you will probably know more about
canva than I, it is very similar to adobe express – I must say the only thing I use
this app for sometimes, is setting up our Instagram stories whenever we have a new video
coming out on this channel – if you have seen my old video, you know that I used to
use adobe sketch for this little job, but since adobe killed that app earlier this year,
I thought I would give canva a try – n you know what , I think for simple tasks like
this – it’s a pretty good tool – I hate the way it looks n I mean this animation in
particular is so SO unnecessary – but oh well, point is if you already have a template
which you just need to utilize here n there, you could do what I do here and just pop images
on a top layer to make a simple insta story using canva.
Now, I still stand by, what I have said two years ago in my old video, about all this
template based content creation - these tools and functions, would not cut the mustard,
for any self respecting graphic design professionals as a primary work tool, but what I had to
learn over the last two years, is its unreasonable to expect EVERYONE to pay into professional
software packages – some of you just need simple graphics done on the odd occasion - preferrably
on the cheap – and that’s fine.
Now, the next app on my list is called Coolors n im just gonna go ahead and assume, that
this is how they want us to pronounce it, as it is basically a rather clumsy abbreviation
of the phrase, cool colours – coolours – yeah?
You feeling it?
No, well, me neither Putting the brand name aside, this is a simple
but snappy colour palette generator app, that I find myself utilising more and more lately.
As a designer, you probably have seen a bunch of similar applications to this one, God knows
I tried a few, but I keep coming back to this app as it is just so damn user friendly.
It takes seconds to load up, there are no unnecessary extra functions in it, n it just
does its job so well – you can start generating colours automatically here on the main screen,
lock the shades you like, n keep going with the others until you get a complete palette,
mess with the hierarchy n eventually, you will get something you like the look of.
There is a very well organized, built in colour library as well here, if you don’t wanna
start generating you palette from zero and of course, N like with most of these apps,
you can also use your phones camera to take a quick snap of something you like the shades
of out there in the real world n use that as a base for your colour palettes.
Once you are done generating your palette, you can save out your findings in a bunch
of different picture formats, it will give you your shades with their respective HEX
codes, so you can go ahead and utilize them in your design work yeah?
Pretty cool Now, the next app is a classic, good old,
sketching app, and in this field I believe the best one you can download for free is
Autodesk’s Sketchbook Listen, I have tried many different applications
in this niche, and the usual consensus tends to be that you well, you get what you pay
for – free drawing apps usually SUCK, but I find sketchbook sucks a bit less than most
of the others.
While usually you get a very limited toolbox to work with in most apps like this one, here
you get an array of different pencils, brushes, marker pens to scribble with, as well as some
other, rather interesting perspective bending mirroring functions, which are well, quite
fun to experiment with.
I gotta say, im not big on the idea of sketchin on my phone -personally, I could never do
any proper work in this environment – but you know, every now n then I find myself in
situations where I got an idea for a quick logo or something, but I happen to be, I dunno,
on a train, n I got no pen n paper with me, just my phone.
The user interface im not a huge fan of, it takes a bit of time to get used to, it feels
a bit clumsy n confusing in places, at least on my android phone, but again, since you
get so much functionality for free here, so im not sure I got the right to complain, really.
Now the last app on my list is a bit of a bonus one, n it’s called Google Lens.
This differs from the others in a sense, that it is not a straight up design tool per say,
but still I think it can be very useful for designers in cetain situations.
Google lens is essentially an image to text converter tool, one of those scanning apps
that uses your camera in order to turn images or words, into actual workable text Now before
you start wodering,, im well aware that if you got an iphone, you get this function built
in into your iphone’s camera app, but believe me when I say, google lens is better, like
WAY better at its job.
For one, google lens is able to turn your hand writing into workable text, even my genuinely
awful Awful handwriting - while apple as far as I know struggles on that front, and, can
only really work with more mechanical looking, perfect writing, resembling printed fonts
– in both systems you get the option to translate text in real time as well, but again,
while apple’s language toolkit is still quite limited, google translate works with
basically any language in the world at this point.
– which also means that with google you can even translate handwriting in real time,
if you needed to, which is NUTS as far as I’m concerned.
It also does a bunch of other crazy while mostly irrelevant things to the world of graphic
design, like identifying objects, products, animals, around you – it can solve mathematical
equations in real time, just by pointing at them, which makes me question everything I
have ever learnt while I was in school back in the day, but well, that’s a whole other
topic, for maybe a future video.
Guys I hope you enjoyed this little updated list, honestly, feel free to watch my old
video too if you haven’t seen it cause 3 out of the 5 apps mentioned there are still
holding up, n I use them as much as I use these 5 new ones –
Our regular creative crew members know that we talk about not just graphic design and
brand illustration in this channel but Jacqueline, my partner’s content focuses on interior
design and architecture and everything else overlapping these cool things
So if any of that sounds interesting, follow us along here or on patreon!
Please to Leave a like to help us reach more people with this channel, and ill hope to
see you next time with some other cool creative stuff!
Ok?
Bye Now!