tools

App Happy

In the design office, our iPads are becoming our most indispensable tools. They accompany us to our weekly meetings, assist us at our desks with our daily tasks, and even entertain us during our lunch breaks. As the most recent member to join Berroco’s unofficial iPad club, I’ve been spending a few weeks catching up to Norah and Taro (both iPad aficionados) and getting their advice on all the coolest and most helpful apps.

Here’s a list of our current favorites:

Sketchbook ProNorah’s been faithfully using this app for years, and even wrote a blog post about it in 2010. It eliminates the surprisingly fiddly process of scanning a paper drawing, then cropping and color-correcting afterwards. And there’s a mirror-image function, which means that both armholes in a sketch can finally have the exact same slope, every time.

Zite – Another of Norah’s favorites, this magazine app tailors its content based on your preferences, and continues to personalize it further every time you use it. Norah’s been using it to keep up-to-date with knitting blogs.

Evernote – Norah introduced me to Evernote during my first week at Berroco, and I’ve learned to love it as much as she does. While preparing to design a new season, we’ll share Evernote notebooks so that we can each see what the other has been researching, and it’s much easier to develop an overall mood for the season.

Paper by FiftyThree – Norah, Taro and I all count this drawing app as one of our favorites. It magically translates simple gestures into beautiful, balanced lines. There are fewer tool options than in Sketchbook, but the ease of use and overall layout are so nice that it doesn’t matter.

Minimal Folio – Taro’s favorite folio app lets you to sort your images and videos easily into columns, allowing you to scroll down as well as side-to-side. It’s simple and straightforward, which makes it especially handy when you’re trying to jump quickly from one grouping to another.

Style.com –Norah and I both routinely find inspiration while flipping through the runway shows on Style.com, and with the iPad app it’s even easier.

It seemed important to mention that no one asked us to review our iPads or the apps, and we paid for them all – except the free ones, of course!

Amanda

4 thoughts on “App Happy

  1. i’ve been wanting an iPad for a while now, and after reading this post, I feel like I can justify it even more than before, lol.

  2. I love my iPad I rarely use a paper based pattern now. Thanks for showing us your favourite apps. Please show us more. Xxx meditation knits.

  3. Pattern Error! Viveca beret– on Row 1 of Pattern Stitch, the pattern reads “end K1-135 sts.” It should read “end K2-135 sts.”
    I verified and contined knitting to be certain of the correction. Thanks!

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