My Mac app icon design workflow My favourite Mac app icons are simple enough to be easily read in the Dock, yet they contain interesting details when viewed up close. They have large vibrant areas of colour, yet they contain enough contrast and shading to give them a sense of volume. The easy-to-use art and design app that empowers you to create logos, icons, posters and more. It features an expansive catalogue of already rendered images, shapes, and patterns that you can layer, group, and modify. Tap into the power of desktop graphic design apps using your iPad or iPhone. Create is Adobe's magazine by creatives, for creatives — available online and as a mobile app. Visit them for inspiration and tutorials on photography, illustration, graphic design, web design, motion graphics, audio/video, branding, and more. Don't be fooled by its minimal design: Dropbox Paper has lots of advanced features tucked away that are easy to access and intuitive to use once you're familiar with the app. Create new documents, edit existing ones, see all your team activity in an organized list, post and reply to.
“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R & D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R & D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.” – Steve Jobs
Macintosh, as you know all too well, is the much beloved computer, made by Apple. Macintosh computers were the first ever manufactured so as to be accessible to average users, and dominated what little market there was for personal computers from the early 80’s to the early 90’s.
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After a short period of decline between the early and mid 90’s, Macs have regained popularity, and is currently pretty much dominating the hipster scene with Macbooks.
If you are a designer that’s only just recently made the switch from a Windows computer to a Mac, then you are probably looking for some apps for it, just so you can see what this puppy can do. We are here to help. To aid in your quest for Mac apps, we have decided to make a list of some of the best the internet has to offer.
1. Pixelmator
We could just start off our list with the Adobe Suite, but that would be just plain lazy of us, so instead we will be kicking off with a Mac exclusive. Taking full advantage of the latest Mac technologies, Pixelmator is a terrific image editing app that offers lots of tools for all your “photoshoping” needs.
2. Sketch
Whatever you are designing, be it UI, UX, icons, or anything else you might have in your head, Sketch is here to give you a helping hand. With its state of the art vector boolean operations and extensive layer styles, this app’s workflow makes the creative process streamlined, and significantly less of a hassle, allowing you to focus on being creative.
3. alpha
Calling itself a “composition engine”, alpha lets you work with whole images, rather than individual pixels, and its tools reflect that, meaning that it might take some time to get used to it. Once you do, however, you will discover an entirely new way thinking about image composition, thereby taking your designs to a whole new level.
4. BBEdit
If you are working with HTML, then you are definitely going to need BBEdit. It is the leading HTML and text editor for the Mac, boasting an intuitive interface, FTP and SFTP open and save, AppleScript, and Mac OS X Unix support, this is a must-have for web designers using Mac. Also, the developers are a humble bunch, using “It doesn’t suck.” as a slogan.
5. Ember
Keeping screenshots and photos in folders might seem organized enough, but once you have enough of them, looking for a specific one becomes a real nightmare. Ember is here to help you neatly organize all you design inspiration, by letting you drag and drop images off the web, and applying tags and other metadata to create “Smart Collections”.
6. Espresso
Time is of the essence in web design, and Espresso’s goal is to give you a caffeine buzz (pardon the pun). Extensive language support, contextual completions, and Zen actions are just a few of the words used to describe how this app will help you with your workflow, and as an added bonus, it also has CSSEdit 3 built in.
7. Diagramix
We’ve mentioned how important infographics and diagrams are, in a previous article, so an app just for creating them had find its way on our list. Diagramix is just the app you need if you are preparing a professional looking pitch for some up-tight corporate types.
8. Cornerstone
Built on Subversion, Cornerstone provides a tremendously useful version control tool, keeping all the changes done to a project over time in one, easy to access place. It focuses on user friendliness on all levels, beginning at price, and ending at UI, and it doesn’t loose performance along the way.
9. Hype 2
Nothing quite captures a user’s eye as animated and interactive elements. Websites can feel a bit samey at times, so it is your duty as a web designer to turn it up a notch. You can do that with Hype, which has a whole array of cool features and effects that you can use to make stunning animations (which are also IE6 compatible).
10. Antetype
As the developers themselves state, it’s design and layout software by UI designers, for UI designers, meaning that, once again, user friendliness reigns supreme. It also has a nifty tutorial section to help you ease into the app, which you can see here.
11. Logo Design Pro
We’ve discussed how important logos are before, and you will be thrilled to see how easy and fast making a logo becomes with this app. Thousands of logo templates, a great resizing tool and a great interface make this program a must-have if you have very little time to make a logo.
12. Transmit
Guess what this does. If you guessed “transmits files really fast”, then you are right.
13. Glyphs
Fonts, when done properly, are awesome. Fonts are one of those cool, little elements that most people don’t really notice, but make all the difference in the world in a design. Glyphs is a great app for the Mac, that lets you either create an entirely new font, or modify an existing one, making sure you will never be short on fonts.
14. Intesify
Intensify lets you work on your photos, the same way that Ableton lets you work on your songs (for creative purposes, we’re thinking of you as a DJ. Great show last night, by the way). Endorsed with nice words by Urs Buhlman and Lucas Gilman, this app is absolutely fantastic for creating gorgeous photos from even the banalest shots.
15. MacDraft PE 6
MacDraft is a great app if you like vector illustrations, and by “like” we mean “make”. The “PE” stands for personal edition, but it still has plenty of features from the award-winning professional edition, while being easier to learn than other available similar programs.
16. Gradient
It takes much, much longer to explain this app, then it takes to actually use it, and we are already kind of half-way done. Basically, you chose a color from either your mockups, or the standard color window, set the gradient, choose the browser prefix, color fallbacks, and output types, then Gradient will generate a ready-to-paste code for you to use in your web design.
17. SketchBook Pro 6
If you are a pen tablet user, then you will absolutely fall in love with SketchBook. This app is especially designed to be used with the aforementioned pen tablets, making the process of drawing in the program feel natural.
18. mosaic
Out of all the apps on our list, it’s this one that can definitely get you hooked on it. It is incredibly easy to use, and the results can be pretty awesome. Seeing as it runs very fast, you can just keep on experimenting until you get a result you like, making it both a fantastic toy and tool.
19. Icon Slate
Not much to say here other than what it does, with the mention that it does it really well. With Icon Slate you can compose, import, and export icons in several formats for both PC and mobile.
20. PhotoArtista – OilMac App Design Inspiration Journal Download
And now we finally know where all those Impressionist paintings that you find in bars come from. Although you probably won’t get the classiest of results, it’s still impressive just how good the app is at creating “oil paintings” from photos, and you never know when that will come in handy.
That wraps our list of 20 awesome Mac apps. We hope you found them useful, and that they’ll help you make great designs. Please leave us your thoughts, along with any suggestions, in the comment section below.
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macOS is one of the most popular operating systems in the world. If you just bought a Mac, you may need some apps that are very easy to use to help you edit some photos or even create some great icons or logos on your Mac.
So, here are the best 15 graphic design apps for Mac:
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1. Icon Plus
If you are looking for an app that can help you create or modify an icon or logo then we recommend you try out Icon Plus. This app comes with some amazing features like combining images and text for creating fabulous logo designs. You can also edit existing graphics for obtaining great user interfaces. You can download it from the Mac App Store for just $4.99.
2. Gravit Designer
Gravit Designer is one of the most complete apps in this business. This app can be used for all sorts of design jobs (app icons for example) and even animations and presentations. You have to pay if you want to use the PRO version of this app, but the free one is really excellent too.
3. Inkscape
Inkscape is a very useful design tool which you will find on the Mac App Store. It focuses on the SVG format and it offers some special features that are not available with other apps such as alpha bending, markers and cloned objects, all for free.
4. Krita
This one is pretty cool. Being in development since 1999, Krita is a great painting tool that comes with different types of brushes and with advanced filters that will make your work easier. You can download this app for free.
5. GIMP
If you are searching for a free app that is very similar to Photoshop you should download GIMP. Even if it’s free you can use the full suite of tools like painting tools, clonning, correction or selection.
6. Image Tricks
If you are the type of person that likes to play with images and edit them, this app is perfectly suited for you. As the name suggests, Image Tricks gives you the possibility to apply a multitude of different photo effects on your pictures, all for free.
7. Comipro Plus
Comipro Plus is the creation of a Japanese company but it can be used by english speakers too. This app was made for the cartoon enthusiasts and enables them to create various modern comics. You can get this app for free from the Mac App Store.
8. Scratch
If you have a passion for animations you have to download Scratch. This app is very easy to use and you can create animated stories or small games just for fun. This application is completely free.
9. DAZ Studio
If you want to create 3D programs where you can use 3D objects, people and animals this app is perfect for you and you need to download it immediately. You can download DAZ Studio from the Mac App Store for free.
10. ArchiCad
If Google SketchUp isn’t enough for you and you need a 3D design app with more features, then ArchiCAD is the app for you. This tool allows you to bring your ideas to life in 3D, all for free.
11. Adobe Ilustrator CC
This app is one of the best in the business, it helps you create some great graphic designs for websites, video games or apps. It also comes with a state-of-the-art digital illustration tool. Even if it’s not cheap, this app is a must-have.
![]() Mac App Design Inspiration Journal Download
12. Canva
Canva is a great app that can be used by both begginers and professionals, by both individuals and teams. Canva is an app that lets you create professional graphic designs very easily. It offers you access to over a million graphics or images.
13. Corel PaintShop Pro
This image editing software is an easy to use tool for anyone. It comes with a lot of features that help you create graphic designs or improve your photos and it is very similar to Photoshop. It might not be free, but is a very useful app.
14. Piktochart
If you are looking for a very easy to use infographic maker, Piktochart is exactly what you need. It comes with a large library of themes and templates that help you customize your multimedia projects, all for $12.50/month.
Mac App Design Inspiration Journal 2017
15. Venggage
App Design Template
This app is pure gold. It helps you tell your stories and present your data. It is especially created for marketers and it helps you create whatever materials you want.
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November 2020
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