Okay, so this is reaching but one can see where you could pull some nice textured backgrounds from screen grabs off of this app. It has wonderful animation, and is temporarily entrancing as entertainment, but it's really tough to draw with in any meaningful way. I'll spare you Sand Art which was a disappointment, despite the promise.
Finally bought several stylus pens designed for touch screens. What follows are samples created as I bounced around several drawing apps. You can get really nice fluid curves with these pens. Unfortunately, most of the iphone apps are saving at a resolution that doesn't capture all of the info that is there on the screen. The ipad will be a different story, as the resolution should go up to print-like resolution.
First up is a drawing started in Vellum, and then painted on in Brushes. Any fine drawing in any of the samples from this post was done using a stylus pen.
Next are two examples done in VELLUM attempting to show how nicely curves are rendered, despite the resolution. These look great on the iphone screen from within the app.
These last ones were done in Ink Dabbler, and again show the fidelity and accuracy you can get using the pen in certain ways. Not sure if the stylus pens work for gestural drawing, in the way that a fingertip might, but worth having.
One the most interesting features of smart phones is the accelerometer inside. Rather than attempt to explain how it works(see Wiki), I'll focus on what it could mean for the iphone as a design toy/tool. A graphic designer can now throw in gravity as a possible tool within even simple digital design environments. Add to that the touch interface, and the fidelity of the rendering, and that the rendering is immediate and happens in real time. Go try and do this type of manipulation in Photoshop so quickly and easily.
One interesting App is Sketchmania, where you can draw simple objects, lines, stick figures, etc. that you then can move around the screen using gravity as you rotate the device around. This uses the accelerometer, but in a very basic 2D way. Nothing to admire on the visuals front, but a hint at what could be possible within a better drawing program. Try the free version with ads, it's worth a doodle or two.
With Marbling, the 3D wonder of the accelerometer comes into its glory. This is more widely known for creating funhouse effects on snapshots of one's friends and loved ones.
These were BuroDestruct dwgs that were filtered in Marbling. Surprisingly smooth rendering, even without the resolution for now.
Next up are a few iphone shots that were also run through Marbling.
How about drawing with heat in real time? Heat Pad handles that. I just started to play with this, it's probably more toy than tool for designing but with a lot of features and color schemes available, and again with really nice rendering.
One more mention is Pollock, which is an 2D ink splat doodle App. Nice and organic, although very bitmapped for now.
Sometimes marketing needs...
call for heavy duty measures. I offer you Emboss, which has three basic controls for lighting, depth, and overall tonal value. Background on both is from Ink Dabbler, type is from iCaptions Lite(free).
Finally came across another App which provides some type capability. Photogene, along with the more typical photo App functions, offers up some burst and other shapes that have a type function. Closest I've seen so far to something one would see in the big layout programs. Also finally stumbled onto how to do screen grabs on the iphone; hold down Home button, while pushing on/off switch at top of iphone. You'll hear the shutter click you would get on your laptop or desktop.
In these, you'll see a screen grab shot while in Icycloid, with type added first in Type Drawing and then in Photogene along with thought bubble and frame.
This is very basic as a cover design, but still... all on the iphone.
Trochoid is the App, which is free. They have a pro version, and there appears to be a handful of other iphone Apps that can generate this type of Spirograph-like art. The very fluid response is fun to experience in real time as you're moving the ratios around with your fingers, There are color variations with this, although I found myself gravitating towards a monochromatic scheme, so I could see the patterns more clearly. Usefulness? Not so sure, but you can save them to the photo album, which is becoming the main qualifier for me. Here's a sampling, albeit a monochromatic one. The straight lines and triangles were a bit of a surprise.
Back to basics for Buro Destruct Designer, at least output-wise. It's a clever little App that also doubles as a promotional tool for the Swiss design collective, Buro Destruct. Based on the Swiss grid system, this App randomly throws out squares and circles, or both, and any combination thereof with a shake, or a push of the finger. It seemed like a good place to go for some basic shapes to potentially add elsewhere. The ease and speed of this, like a lot of the Apps, is great. It is very random, but whipping through so many possibilities would take forever in more traditional programs. You can check Buro Destruct out here. They also make this App for the Mac, but I found it more fun on the iphone. The ipad version may be the ticket, which I assume will be in the making. Check out their group portraits if you go to the website, maybe after turning on some Kraftwerk.
A few examples to show some possibilities, and a filtered composite I threw together with some type from Type Drawing.
Short, sweet and simple, this one.
Started with some scribbles in Brushes, then ran them through filters in Camera Bag and Format 126, and composed the type in Type Drawing. All on the iphone, except for the upload. Still have to sort out why the uploads are hanging up over the wi-fi, they're very small files?
Love the quality of line on the background shown below, which I tried reinforcing with that classic, American Typewriter Bold. Font choices seem to be limited on any of the Apps involving type, and are the standard iphone system fonts.
Composed entirely on the iphone and its camera, using the Apps; Type Drawing, Ink Dabbler(see inset), and the newly purchased Layers. Love the selector scroll features for adjusting size, font and color, etc. in TD. Ink Dabbler has great Wacom pad-like sensitivity. All of this will become much more real on the ipad, but fun to play with for now on the iphone given the iphone's ridiculously tiny size compared to my full-sized monitor and desktop from way back, or yikes, the drawing board before that.
The sketch below was created on an iphone using several different apps. The type was added in Type Drawing, and saved a few minutes after purchasing it at the Apps store. Once I had experienced the simplicity and ease of use found in Apps for the iphone, I wondered how soon until scaled-back versions of complex programs like Indesign, or Illustrator might be available there. Long ways to go on that front, but there are ways to simulate layouts from more intensive programs. Orange background from Brushes, with type added in Type Drawing. The resolution has a ways to go, but this notion of using the iphone as a place to sketch design layouts has promise.
My 8 year old son's Sharpie work on a book blank I had given him.
The back (upside down)
and the spine.
Hope to have better shots of this soon.
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