Technology has radically changed the world of design. In the past, the design process relied mainly on manual labor, X-Acto cutting blades, glue and French curves, but today it has evolved to be in large part digitally driven.
Basic Apps
Many applications of all kinds have contributed to the digitization of the functionalities of innovation studios. Dropbox has replaced the file room, and Slack has become the ultimate means of fast communication.
The boom of apps can overwhelm a project and stifle innovation, but some of them have managed to soar to the top of the design world in terms of productivity, inspiration, and communication.
In this context, we asked a group of designers, illustrators and innovators from different parts of the world to share the applications they always use and cannot live without. Learn regarding some of them below…
> “Things” and “RightFont” applications. Dan Elliott, designer and art director says; The first application, “Things”, designed to organize tasks and productivity, is very useful for me in organizing my days, weeks and months because it helps me manage my professional and private projects. It was developed “Things” to run on iOS and macOS exclusively, and I must admit that it keeps my ideas and my desk organized at the same time.
As for the second application, “Right Font”, which is designed for professional organization of fonts on macOS, it is characterized by ease of use and speed of intuition, and includes the feature of automating important Adobe programs such as “Illustrator” and “InDesign”.
> Dropbox. Painter Lucia Calfaberta says: The most effective app for me is Dropbox because I keep all my work files and photos in it, and it keeps old versions of all the files so I can go back to them to review.
> Tumblr. Tumblr is one of my favorite inspirational apps, says Andy Johnson, writer, editor, and designer; I’ve been loyal to it since 2010. It’s true that the app has had some bad times and good times, but in terms of inspiration it offers its user a huge amount of content, images, stickers, archival documents, colors, themes, and texts that keep the creative ideas flowing.
beauty boost
> “Lightroom Mobile”, “Retouch” and “In-Shot”. Joanna Muñoz, graphic artist and illustrator says; I use Lightroom Mobile to complete the photo synthesis tasks and the Do You Travel app to give my photos an extra aesthetic boost. I also use Retouch for quick synthesis tasks such as removing lines and random objects from images, in addition to the InShot application for simple synthesis in videos such as linking or accelerating clips.
> «VSCO» + «Photos» VSCO + Photos. Visco and Photos work together to give me the best results, says Sophia Yishi, illustrator, designer and owner of Yishi Design studio; As a designer and illustrator, I am often inspired by colours, scenes, and the texture of the world around me. I take photos regularly and edit them with Fesco, which allows me to bring my photos to life with its filters and blend options, most notably boosting saturation.
* Adobe Illustrator. Nubia Navarro (Nobikini), art director and graphic artist says; I use this app as an everyday tool for making posters and logos. This tool is very versatile and helps me create stylized designs in a very interesting way. Also, Adobe Illustrator, a designer and a human, helps me in an innovative way to manipulate shapes and create unique works and shapes that are used in many formats.
Mixing old and new
> Procreate. “Says Sendiso Nioni, graphic designer and illustrator; “Procreate” is my favorite and most used application today on the “iPad Pro” because I see it as a mixture of traditional and digital media, especially since I still prefer pen and ink today. I consider myself an old school design boy who used light boxes, tracing paper, and scanners to make graphics. But since I started using Procreate regarding 4 years ago, it has helped me a lot to fill the gap in the style that I was accustomed to in my art work, and I found that it allows me to complete my work more quickly, considering that today I am drawing in the application that replaced the light box And ink and tracing paper, and then I transfer the work to the application “Photoshop” or “Illustrator”, which I have used for years.
> ‘Ari. Are.na. Daniel Kent, Artistic Director of Ichore Studio says: There are only a few basic applications that I use (as distinct from common design software) that are worth mentioning, most notably Ari.na, which I use as a research tool for projects, often as private channels, sometimes public. This application allows its user to collect images, documents, text, links, audio clips and other materials. It also allows the establishment of a small communicative group according to the user’s desire without relying on an algorithm.
> InDesign. My favorite app that I use all the time is InDesign, which keeps me connected to my MacBook, although I prefer to work on the iPad, which appeals to its simplicity, says Giuseppe Santa Maria, photographer and designer… Besides being the best app for storing books and magazines, this app gives you A digital whiteboard where you put your ideas and organize them with very few controls. It should be noted that “InDesign” was the first application that I trained to use, meaning that you can learn everything through it.
* «Fast Company», «Tribune Media» services
