iPhone apps for designers
Apple iPhone
As much as I love my iPhone, it wouldn’t be half the experience without the range of downloadable applications and games available for it. With its accelerometer, internet connection and (flawed) camera, the possibilities offered by the platform are huge.
There are plenty of apps out there aimed at designers. Some intended to aid our everyday tasks, and others more for fun. Here are some of the best I’ve found so far:
WhatTheFont
Bitstream Inc. / MyFonts
£Free
This font identification tool has been available over at MyFonts for many years now. Basically you upload a bitmap image of a typeface and (assuming its a commercially available font) the site will do its best to identify it for you, and provide links to purchase it if needs be. All very clever stuff, but now its available on iPhone, you can indulge your curiosity on the move by taking a picture of a font in-situ and uploading the image over the internet. The only flaw with this is the weakness of the iPhone camera itself, but the app seems to do its job. Just try to use it in daylight!
Color Expert
Code Line
£5.99
Next we have an app that although a bit pricey, is well worth the investment if like me, your colour (not color) theory needs a refresh. You can simply use Color Expert to browse swatch colours, or create your own schemes by choosing a base colour and then asking the app to provide Monochromatic, Analogous, Complementary or Triadic matches based on the colour wheel. Once you’re happy with the scheme, you can then click through to each swatch and get the RGB values / nearest spot colour information. You can also take a photo with the camera and then pick a base from the resulting image to work up a scheme with.
In all, its a very interesting app and i’m looking forward to seeing what ideas appear within an update.
Font Shuffle
FontShop
£Free
Ah FontShop, one of my favourite websites. Now you can browse their library on your iPhone – simply choose a class:
Sans Serif / Serif / Slab Serif / Script / Blackletter / Display
Then choose a sub-class:
Serif > Ventetian / French / Baroque / Neo-Classical / Rugged / Decorative
The app will then return six possible matches. If you don’t like any of them, give your iPhone a shake (or press the shuffle button) and six more options will appear. Once you’ve chosen a face, you can type your own caption to display using that typeface, and save a screenshot for later if you like it.
Kern
FORMation
£0.59
Last but not least we have Kern, a game – believe it or not – involving the art of kerning. It’s actually more fun than it sounds, and though I can’t see it becoming a hit outside of the design community, its worth 59 pence of anyone’s money. You start with a stray letter at the bottom of the screen, which you can move left or right. The rest of this letter’s word starts at the top of the screen, and gradually makes its way downwards. Its your job to properly align this letter with its space in the word. Your score is determined by how far away the word was when you chose your position, as well as how closely you aligned your letter to its preferable position.
Finally
So there you have it, i’d love to know of any others out there that i’ve missed…