As a designer, I often have opportunities to sketch out ideas for clients – I might be in the wireframing stage of the design and want to get ideas on paper quickly, or I might need to create a logo or illustration. However, it can be a pain to get a paper sketch to a client! There are similar frustrations if you are sketching for fun and have no way to capture the physical sketch.
Luckily, there are now several applications for iPad that let you sketch and create quickly (typically with a stylus or Apple Pencil), and allow easy digital export. My top three are Paper, Procreate, and Affinity Designer.
Affinity Designer is a vector graphics software used by dynamic artists, designers, and professionals to develop rich visual interfaces for websites, corporate identities, logos, promotional materials, and other digital artworks. Procreate is an iPad application which is designed for creative professionals. It can sketch, paint and edit in a comprehensive set of tools complete with rich support for several kinds of. Affinity Designer is a comprehensive graphics editing application, and a great alternative to Adobe Illustrator if you’re looking for a modern, one-payment app. The software is affordable, supports a wide variety of file types, and very beginner-friendly. The community for Affinity Designer is growing. To begin with, I would not pitch one very good App against another, as both have their strengths and loyal following of users. I reviewed both Apps when I was deciding upon a digital tablet to purchase, i.e. Whether an iPad, an Android or Windows.
Paper by WeTransfer
Free, optional Paper Pro $11.99/year (App store)
Paper is an application that lets you sketch ideas in a journal-like format. It has a limited number of brush/pen options (some are only available with Paper Pro), plus cut/paste and duplicate functionality.
I’ve been a fan of Paper since it’s FiftyThree days, but the reason I continue to use it for wireframing is that it comes with web and mobile templates in-app, as well as storyboarding templates.
My favorite “brush” to use for prototyping is one that snaps your slightly wiggly lines or uneven circles into straight lines, rectangles, and circles. In addition, because Paper lacks some of the more advanced functionality of tools like Procreate and Affinity Designer, it’s easier to focus on the content of a wireframe rather than layers, custom brushes, or creating a pixel-perfect design.
Procreate
$9.99 (App store)
Procreate is touted as one of the best sketching apps on iPad. It offers all sorts of functionality for digital sketching and art, including brushes, layers, and several hand gestures that can be used instead of the stylus.
Procreate does a fantastic job pairing with the Apple pencil to get a variety of textures and depths, much like using a real pencil on paper. The downside of Procreate is its steep learning curve. I’ve been using it for a few months and am still discovering new functionality. Some of the functionality, specifically around finger gestures, is so hidden I only discovered it watching other people sketching.
Overall, Procreate is fantastic software for digital drawing and sketching. But for beginners, I’d recommend watching tutorials and other artists to get the hang of all the hidden features.
Affinity Designer
$19.99 (App store)
Affinity Designer differs from Procreate and Paper in that it allows me to create and export vector illustrations or designs. It also gives me control over each vector node or point.
Affinity designer is a nice balance between freehand drawing with a stylus and the control of vector forms that I missed from my graphic design days. Since it renders in vector, it also gives you great control over color and gradients in a way that is a little more difficult in Procreate, and which just isn’t possible with Paper. This tool is my go-to for creating things like logos and other imagery that needs to be scaled across a variety of media and sizes.
Overall, these tools together give me a well-rounded set of options depending on my personal or client needs—whether they need wireframes, a logo, or a digital illustration.
The moment has come, Affinity Designer for iPad Pro has arrived. So, it only seems right that I do a bit of a first impressions review, as my review of the desktop app was one of my first posts on this blog about two years ago.
Before we get into this, I have to confess that I bought my iPad with a future of using it with Affinity Designer, despite the app not existing at that point, quite firmly in my mind. While I was waiting, not so patiently, for the app to come into being I’d become quite attached to Procreate. It’s pixel only format was a lot of fun to play with, and was great at encouraging me to be looser with my less formal drawings. But it did leave me wanting as someone who mainly works in vectors and was used to having the full suite of tools available on Affinity Designer (who knew I would miss shapes and text so much?) it did leave me wanting, especially for commissioned work. In fact, I found myself reverting to my old Wacom Bamboo and Affinity on my laptop, after some bad experiences with duet, despite comparatively sad drawing experience.
So, as you might be able to guess, I was super excited when I heard the announcement, then I was filled with dread that my expectations might have been just that bit too high.
Thankfully, any anxieties I had were quickly way-laid. Affinity Designer does everything I want it to and a load more, much of it I probably still haven’t discovered yet. Before I start waxing lyrical let’s break this review up a little bit.
Pros?
The big pro of Affinity Designer is just the sheer amount it lets you do. It leaves Adobe Draw looking like a Fisher Price vector tool and it blows Procreate out of the water if you’re looking to do anything more than paint digitally. I’m not going to list everything you can do here, because we’d be here forever. There’s a full list on Serif’s website. But I can’t imagine there’s much you’d want to do or expect to be able to do in a similar desktop app, that you can’t make happen.
Affinity Designer moves absolutely seamlessly between raster and vector layers, which is the big thing I’ve been looking for. You can get those “natural” textures and the freedom of drawing with pixels. Then slip right back into the editability and scalability of vectors without skipping a beat.
As I mentioned at the top of this, some time ago now, I’ve tried a few screen mirroring apps like Duet in my search to replicate the tools I was used to with little avail. Like Procreate, Affinity Designer was built with native use and the apple pencil in mind so all of the issues of lag and pressure sensitivity are a thing of the past. It also includes all of the multitouch gestures you’d expect from two-finger tap undo to canvas rotation (turn it on in the right-hand sidebar).
It also has all of the customisation options you’d expect from a desktop app from adding in your own fonts, which was surprisingly easy, to creating your own vector and pixel brushes. So there’s really very little you can’t do.
One area I haven’t really explored in the iPad version of the app, which is new, is its UI functionality. It’s something I’m looking to play with more, but I’m not a UI designer so I’ll leave a review of that to the pros.
Cons?
Affinity Designer Procreate Iphone X
The only negative I’ve found so far is that the iPad version of the app takes a bit of learning. One of the things I loved about Affinity Designer on desktop was that it took all of the complexities out of Adobe Illustrator, and just offered you the functionality you wanted exactly where you would expect it. However, the UI on iPad is a little bit fiddly. I’m a few weeks into using it in earnest and I’m still opening and reopening bits of the sidebar trying to work it out. If you’re used to using Designer on desktop there are some similar features but don’t expect your workflow to be as smooth from the get-go. If you’re completely new to Designer, especially if you’ve not used Illustrator either or you’re a die-hard Procreate fan, be prepared to put some time into learning the ins and the outs. Thankfully the kind folks at Serif have put together a series of tutorials to get you started or help you out if you get stuck, but I’m still yet to find anything better than just using software like this and working out how to get it to do what you want it to do.
Affinity Designer Procreate Iphone 7
Who’s it for?
Affinity Designer is the app for anyone wanting to use their iPad as a serious graphics tool, whether that’s for illustration, lettering (it has loads of great typography tools), vector work, or anything in between. If you’re only looking to casually sketch, you might not need anything beyond Procreate. But for anything beyond that (shapes! Text! Vectors!) I’d highly recommend Affinity.
In short?
As far as I’m aware there really isn’t anything out there that can compete with Affinity Designer when it comes to using your iPad. Having tried using duet and other screen mirroring tools to use desktop apps and turn my iPad into a drawing tablet, having a native app that can do everything you need it to is pretty heavenly. For £19.99, without a subscription, you really can’t go far wrong. Plus, given that they’ve beaten Adobe to the punch I can see Affinity fast becoming the standard when it comes to iPad design apps.
PS – I am in no way sponsored by Serif or Affinity in any way (hi guys!), I just love their apps a lot.
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