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).
Icycloid vs Photogene
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.
A Bit More Math
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.
Design by the Numbers
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.
Appy March 15th
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.
More App Nonsense
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.
Scary Good Fun with iphone Apps
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.
Gaby's book
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.
Mobile test
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