25 Best iPhone Apps for Designers and Freelancers
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Many graphic designers and creatives work in environments that can benefit from mobile access to tools of their trade. If not full-time, many work at least part-time in a freelance manner too.
There hasn’t been a better time than the present for mobile workforces, and one device in particular has pushed mobile utilities to the edge of what’s currently possible.
Last week the Inkd offices officially became an all iPhone workforce, with some last late comers finally joining the party. With every new eye’s wide addition to the iPhone posse comes a flurry of recommended tweaks, tailoring, and app suggestions. We thought we might as well put forth this handy list of our favorites from the mobile savvy Inkd team.
Many of these apps are available for both the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Some are free, and others cost a little scratch, but all hit our bar of usefulness. Read on and let us know what apps you’re using too!
iPhone Apps for Designers
These handy tools are perfect back pocket fit for designers:
 What’s that font?! Ahem, there’s an app for that. Snap a photo and the wizardry of the What the Font web site will get to work right in your hand. You can also use any image you can get in your library, so camera less iPod touch users can play too. Price: Free! |
 FontShop is one of the best destinations for type shopping on the web, and now they’ve gone and put their whole library in your shirt pocket. FontShuffle brings intuitive font browsing to find what you’re looking for fast. Price: Free! |
Create, save, and develop color palettes for a wide range of uses. Grab colors from a photograph, a web site, or add colors using any one of 5 color models. Find that perfect missing color quickly. There are a lot of color apps out there, but this is a favorite, and it even allows some interaction with the ever popular color clique ColourLovers. Price: $9.99 or free lite version |
Powerful color tools to identify colors, match them with Pantone, web safe, and hex colors, along with a bevy of palette creation options. Price: $9.99 |
A very cool color matching and palette management app with a beautiful user interface and price tag you can’t feel too bad about. And you can even export swatches in Adobe CS formats – bam! Price: $2.99 |
 If you just don’t want to pony up the cash for a color plaything, you can always go with Think Ink by Neenah paper. It has a few less features, is a little rigid, but hey, you get palettes, and it’s not like you have to buy paper from these guys. Price: Free! |
 While not geared for all designers – the hobbyist or photo professional in many designers can actually practice shooting by the numbers with this incredibly rich app for calculating all the important details. Price: $2.99 |
File Management and Productivity iPhone Apps
All the tools you need to keep hustling, without being tied to the (home) office chair:
Document viewing, file storage, and you guessed it, easy file sharing over wifi. Bring the creative briefs and comps on the road, and save yourself booting into a Windows install to view that terribly important PowerPoint presentation. Supports tons of formats including iWork and Office. Price: $9.99 for Pro – $4.99 for regular version |
Another great full-featured file viewing and management app covering many file formats, and allowing for the transfer of documents via USB, or even EDGE and 3G via a free included 512 Mb of online Readdle Storage. Price: $4.99 |
Also from Readdle, take notes as text, drawings, photos and even voice recordings – and transfer them back and forth between your mobile device and your computer. This is one of the few great note apps that makes up for a lot of the missing functionality of the basic notes app. Price: $3.99 |
 Evernote takes capturing notes to a whole new level – allowing you to create a note from almost anything, in almost any medium, and then doing it’s best to index all of that media to help you search through notes fast in the future. Price: Free! |
 The most popular to-do and task manager in the App Store, for good reason. Simple intuitive task management keeps you prioritized for today, what’s next, and what’s on the horizon. You can even organize your tasks by project. Price: $9.99 |
 If you are one of the vast numbers of creatives that have latched on to the usefulness of Basecamp for project management, you will find a welcome bunch of apps to access that service, including Outpost. Those ambitious folks at Readdle have a Basecamp app too. |
Time Tracking and Billing Apps for Freelancers
Taking self employment to the beach for the summer:
A time tracking app that boasts great features and good design. No need to keep the app open to keep on tracking. Price: $2.99 |
Already use one of the most popular time tracking services for your business? Here’s your home-grown app for all things Harvest. Price: Free! |
Sleek and simple app interface for Freshbooks, another of the most popular time tracking and billing services for freelancers. Price: Free! |
You’ve seen it on the iPhone commercials, and you’ve probably thought “that sounds handy.” Well it is. A little pricey, but you can enjoy the look on your client’s face when you tell them you do actually accept plastic. Price: $49.99 (promotions often offer for free) plus monthly fees |
Social Media, Reference, and Just Plain Fun
Social media isn’t just for play theses days; many sites are valuable showcase networking platforms. Along with reference at your fingertips, here are some ways to keep your experience growing and even wind down :
 Shozu An app to satiate all your social media wants and needs. Instead of using a bunch of separate apps, see if your favorite photo sharing, networking, or community site is available from the many that Shozu serves up. Price: Free! |
 Tweetie Twitter is a special case social medium that probably needs a specialized app. There is a vast competitive landscape of Twitter apps that all want to be your #1 – but Tweetie is widely regard as the current king of the hill. Price: $2.99 |
 The definitive Wikipedia app. Graceful slick access to arguably the most useful repository of information anywhere. Also great for busting urban legends and winning/losing arguments. Price: $1.99 |
“A designer ode to the old-school art of print plate alignment re-imagined as a challenge of speed and accuracy…” In other words, if you are hard-core to get a tattoo of registration marks on your back, you’ll likely enjoy this intense game of concentration. Price: $1.99 or free lite version |
This app pairs the fun of Labworks’ typographykicksass.com and the associated Flickr pool with messaging to send your friends a truly unique representation of your sentiments. Price: $.99 |
Drawing with letters! Totally fun and addictive. Type a sentence or word, choose a font, and draw. Then showcase! Price: $.99 |
There must be more?! Share your favorites below!
