Another ten free iPhone apps every designer must have

The iPhone is such a great productivity tool, but there are so many apps, it’s hard to know which ones to choose. I’ve already posted a list of my favourites, and it proved to be so popular, that I keep getting asked to do another one. So here it is, a list of ones I use all the time. They’re a great help if you’re a designer, and best of all, they’re free! As a graphic designer, they make life easier, more fun and generally shinier! Please let me know if there are any free iPhone apps you find invaluable as a designer.

1. Adobe Photoshop Express

We all know and love Adobe’s Photoshop. It’s one of the main tools a graphic designer uses, so why wouldn’t you want a copy on your iPhone? Don’t expect to be able to draw masterpieces on your phone just yet, it’s mainly for editing photos, cropping, straightening and manipulating the images you have stored on your phone.

2. FontShuffle

FontShuffle is brought to us by the wonderful FontShop and sorts through all of the fonts available from their store. The great thing is you get an instant font sample and they’re sorted by typestyle. It’s a handy little reference if you’re looking for a typeface on the run.

3. Abduzeedo

There isn’t a single designer on the planet who hasn’t heard of Abduzeedo.com and maybe you’re like me, you stop by every couple of days for a dose of daily inspiration. Well now you don’t have to, the inspiration comes delivered fresh to your iPhone with this handy little app.

4. Saturation

If you haven’t used Adobe’s Kuler website, you’re crazy. It’s a great service that gives you unlimited color combination’s and ties in with your desktop Adobe products. What the Saturation iPhone app does is tap into the online service and then gives you a visual breakdown of the colors using circles to display them.

5. Pandora Radio

One thing people always complain about with the iPhone is how there is no radio. Well Pandora fixes that. It’s like your own personal program because once you choose a song, it suggests other songs you might like and plays them for you. It also integrates with your desktop playlists. Perfect for while you’re working and better than genius because it suggests songs you don’t necessarily have.

6. Photobucket

Upload to your Photobucket account directly with this app or use it to browse the billions of images already online for inspiration.

7. Ruler

It drives me crazy these days that no one seems to carry a ruler. Come to think of it, no one carries a pencil case or any primitive writing implements of any kind, but every now and then, you really need a ruler, which is where this handy little app saves the day.

8. Palettes

Be aware there’s a limited free version and a more full-featured pro version and you will get five goes at the pro version before your free version reverts back. You can have three palettes in the free version.

9. Paypal

The more we live in a global village, the more designers are able to work anywhere in the world, for anyone in the world and Paypal is one of the things that makes that possible. Being able to send and receive money online means most designers are not bound by location anymore.

10. Think Ink: Color Unleashed

Yet another color palette app, but this one ties in with the Neenah Paper range. It also uses the Dewey color system and has a few different ways of viewing colors, fonts and papers. Great if you ever specify Neenah.

Even if you don’t have an iPhone, you can still access the benfits of many of these apps by visiting their parent websites and signing up for an account online. Sure, you might not have them accessible on your phone, but you can still use a web browser. You should also be aware that some apps cease to be free after a while, but at the time of writing, these little beauties were all available at the Apple app store.

I’d love to hear what you think of this article, please make a comment below.

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