You know, your iPod/iPhone isn’t just for showing off and looking cool with. It’s the modern-day equivalent of the Swiss-Army knife and you really should start treating it as such. There’s an incredible amount of stuff it can do if you take the time to find the best apps for the job. Below is a list of world-class apps for your iPod or iPhone if you’re a designer or creative that will streamline your workflow and give you all sorts of new creative methods and outlets to increase your productivity.

WhatTheFont

The ever-popular feature of MyFonts.com now has it’s own iPod app! Basically, you can take pictures of a font, then WhatTheFont will recognize it and tell you what the font is. Badda-bing badda-boom. Lot’s of fun and very useful when you really want to know the name of a font. It’s like the Shazam app but for fonts. Very impressive and a definite must-download.

AirMouse

Turns your iPod into an air-mouse just like the beautifully designed Logitech MX . It has another mode which is like a regular trackpad too. Either way this is great for creatives, especially if you have a projector, you can move your mouse pointer from anywhere in the range of your wireless connection and do presentations and such. Shake your device and up pops a little keyboard. Genius!

KERN

Kern is a game for typo-nuts, where you have to position letters in their correct spaces depending on the kerning. A genius idea that goes over the heads of many but any true graphic designer / typographer will absolutely love this.

COLOUR.

Lives up to its name. It just displays colours really. But it’s very stylish in doing so.

myPantone

It’s Pantone! On your iPod/iPhone! It has a complete list of swatches, very useful and very nicely designed. Get it.

Sketchbook MobileX

I love this app wholeheartedly. Of course nothing will ever replace sketching thoughts out in a nice sketchbook or on a napkin, but in it’s place there’s this app by Autodesk that does a very convincing impression of a sketchpad and it works very very nicely indeed. Highly recommended.

PhotoKeys: Photoshop Remote

Another extremely cool app. It basically turns your iPod/Phone into an extention of your keyboard, but with buttons just for the most commonly used Photoshop commands. So you can save just by hitting save on your iPhone. And it works using your local wireless connection, so now you can remember to save from anywhere in the house. Brilliant.

Color Expert

One of my personal favourite apps. Of all time. Simple, easy to use, comes with a massive list of Pantone swatches and you can e-mail pallettes and colour schemes you create to yourself or to clients and pick colours straight from images. How cool is that?

SynthPond

This app by Zach Gage is included because it’s very nicely designed and it’s creative but in an acoustic way. You drag little symbols around the screen which emit waves which then trigger the other little symbols, which then make sounds. It’s kind of hard to explain, but very enjoyable and relaxing nonetheless. It’s also a good way to generate music for your presentations and showreels and such. Take a peek.

Mill Colour

This app allows you to play with colour grading and image toning using the same techniques used by The Mill who are world-class film grading and image colourists. Very useful for photographers and such, for looking at various toning and grading techniques. Incidentally ‘The Mill’ also have an excellent logo.

colorWatch

If you’re a designer, you’ll know that good design takes time, but always has to be on time. So why not be a little stylish while checking your clock?Check out colourWatch, a very slick timekeeping method using colours…

Mindfulness Meditation

To finish off, I don’t know about you but some clients and design situations really wind me up, so I like to unwind with a little meditation. Of course, there’s a meditation app too, and you know what? It’s beautifully designed too. Choose from 5, 10 and 15 minute meditations (more if you’re a pro) and check out the sweet interface whilst you’re at it. Very calming…

And that’s that. The list will grow, so check back often. Try them out and get back to MONOmoda to let us know how they’re working out for you.

Tagged as: apple, Apps, Creativity, Design, iphone, ipod, Resources, tools