Hi, Youtube it’s Andris from Printful’s marketing team.
In this video, we’ll look at mobile graphic design apps that can be used to create designs
for different print-on-demand products.
If you’re always on the move and in need of a decent graphic design app for your tablet,
watch this video until the end to find the one you need.
Some of them will have a one-time payment, however, a lot of them are free.
Let’s get started.
First on our list is Procreate.
It’s an award-winning, powerful painting and drawing app that lets you create rasterized
artwork.
With a one-time payment of $9.99, this app comes with an extensive customizable brush
library that lets you create any type of brush and to get the most out of this app, you will
need an Apple pencil.
If you’ve used desktop apps in the past, you’ll find that the Procreate user interface
is minimal, with all the panels hidden.
But this doesn't affect the overall experience of using the app.
This is a drawing app after all, where the entire screen is your canvas.
The app is very intuitive and it’s really easy to get used to it.
You can easily create canvases with custom size, DPI and color space.
Depending on your iPad model, you may run into some limitations when choosing the dimensions
of your canvas.
The larger the resolution of your files is, the fewer amount of layers you get to work
with when creating your artwork.
Procreate does require processing power and not all iPads have the same specs.
Keep your product in mind when making your design, as this will help you choose the right
dimensions.
You can also save your artwork as a PNG, which is great for if you want it to have a transparent
background.
You can combine brushes with text and various effects to receive outstanding results.
You can also save your projects in a PSD format and continue editing them on a desktop computer
in Photoshop or any other graphic editing software.
Procreate is best suitable for creating designs for DTG products, mugs, and posters.
If you’re aiming to create all-over print pattern designs, the app doesn’t offer a
feature to create seamless patterns yet.
But you can import your design elements as PNGs into our Printful mockup generator, and
create seamless patterns there.
We have a tutorial on our channel about this feature.
I’ll leave a link to it in the description for you.
Next up we have Affinity Designer.
Just like Procreate, it doesn’t have a monthly subscription and goes for a one-time payment
of $19.99.
Affinity Designer has a unique feature that lets you create both vector and raster graphics.
This can be done by instantly switching through workspaces that are called personas that have
different sets of tools.
Use the “Pixel Persona” to plan and sketch your design, and then use the “Vector Persona”
to create shapes, color fills and line work.
During the whole process, you can switch back and forth to add shading and adjustments to
your illustration.
Another great feature is that it allows you to import your fonts and vector brushes from
your desktop computer.
More importantly, you can create simple artwork without the apple pencil.
Everything can be adjusted with just a tap of a finger.
Affinity Designer also gives you access to free stock footage that you can incorporate
in your designs.
You’ll find the user interface quite pleasing, as it has all the panels visible with familiar
tools.
You can create your artwork in the recommended sRGB color profile and export it as a PNG
file with a transparent background, as well as in other formats if you want to do some
retouching in desktop applications.
If you’re new to creating designs on tablets, remember that it will take some time to get
used to hand gestures to optimize your workflow.
Affinity Designer is extremely useful if you want to create designs for embroidery, as
well as print files for different products.
Since vector files are scalable you can easily adjust the elements to fit the product’s
print area.
So far I only covered two of the best apps that are available for Apple devices.
But what about Android?
Next on our list is Autodesk Sketchbook.
As of April 30th, 2018, Autodesk Sketchbook has become free for desktop, mobile and tablet
devices both Android and iOS.
It is a raster-based drawing app that has 190 customizable brushes.
It comes with a predictive stroke assistance feature that helps you draw straight lines
and geometrical shapes, as well as apply the right amount to smoothing to curved lines.
The user interface is quite intuitive thanks to the Rapid UI feature.
By swiping your thumb on the screen you can quickly access brush, color and layers panels,
which are hidden to give you more working space.
You can always switch this feature off to have all the panels visible on the screen.
On a mobile version, you are able to create a custom-sized canvas and export your artwork
with a transparent background or save it as a PSD.
However, all exported work will be only at 72 DPI.
And if you remember, at Printful, we recommend the final artwork to be submitted at a minimum
of 150 DPI resolution.
As an alternative try using bigger file dimensions.
If you have a file that is 24x32" and 72 DPI, you'll get a 12x16" file with 144 DPI when
you import it to our Printful mockup generator.
Keep in mind that Sketchbook only supports creating your work in the RGB color space.
All in all, this is a great app for creating your designs from scratch.
Moving on to our next entry - MediBang Paint.
MediBang Paint is a raster drawing and painting app that’s available for desktop, android
and iOS devices.
The base version of this app is free, almost.
To access the full version, which allows you to select multiple layers, you need to watch
a video ad first.
After that, the base version becomes available for 13 hours.
In addition to that, MediBang Paint has in-app purchases, like ad removal and various feature
packs.
But you can still do a lot with the basic features.
The interface is easy to navigate; there are a lot of familiar tools, and over 50 customizable
bushes.
The important thing to note is that you are able to create canvases for your artwork in
300DPI and export them as a JPEG, PNG, or a PNG with a transparent background.
One thing to note is that on the mobile version of this app you are not able to select the
color profile, which you can do on the desktop app.
So you’re working in RGB by default.
Next, we have Ibis Paint X
Next, we have Ibis Paint X.
It’s another free app on our list that’s available for both Android and iOs devices.
The core version is free, but some of the features like extra brushes can be unlocked
by watching an ad.
You can create custom canvases and adjust the DPI settings, and export your print files
as PNG.
However, you can’t change the color profile so, by default, you’re working in RGB.
This is where it comes in handy to have printed color swatches since you’re able to see
how specific colors come out.
If you plan on creating your designs only on portable devices, without finalizing them
in a desktop application, you need to pay attention to the minor details of your print
file, make sure that all the lines connect and there are no semi-transparent areas within
the design elements.
Your best bet is to include an additional layer that matches the shape of your final
design and fill it with a solid color, this way when it gets printed you won’t have
any unpredictable results.
It’s not impossible to create print-ready designs on Android, but proceed with caution
and make sure to plan out your design, so that you don’t sacrifice quality in the
end.
The last three Android apps that we have covered are best suitable for creating simple artwork
for DTG, like simplified illustrations or bicolor designs.
If you want to know more about making sure to check out our design trend video for 2020,
where we cover those trends in detail.
If you don’t want to download any apps and just want to create elementary designs, you
can do that in Printful’s mockup generator.
With constantly updated features, sample graphics, texts, and clipart, you can create designs
for any products that are available in our catalog, completely free.
We have step-by-step tutorials showing how this can be done for DTG and all-over products,
so feel free to check them out at any time.
Thant’s it.
I hope you found this video useful.
If you’re looking for free applications to use on your desktop device, we have a video
for that as well.
Make sure to subscribe to our channel and tap on the little bell icon to never miss
out on our new videos about design, marketing and ecommerce business tips.
So do you use any of the apps I mentioned or maybe you know others that didn’t make
the list?
Let us know in the comments!