F@#% Laptops, Make Graphics on Your Phone.

Use these apps to avoid your computer.

Original image from Barn Images. Edits made with the apps in this article.

The thought of going into Illustrator or Photoshop to make a graphic for Instagram makes me want to bang my head on a desk, or a wall — or any hard surface, really. Sometimes I want to make graphics for my biz but cannot (even for a million bucks) bring myself to look at a computer for another millisecond. Plus it always takes forever to open the program up, and once you’ve finished the graphic you’re not even done! You still have to export it and get it onto your phone, before you can share it. Yes, yes, I know that people have developed all sorts of workflows to speed this process up, but I don’t care. I’d rather just work on my phone — I can make graphics anywhere and anytime without having to bust out my laptop and the final product is already on my phone, ready to share.

Camera App

Confession: I don’t actually do all the work for my graphics on my phone. I do original lettering with old-school brush and ink. No computer though! When I want to scan the images in for editing, I just go to a well lit area and use my camera app. Instant scan.

See these graphics in use HERE.

PS Express

I use this app to adjust curves and invert photos. It doesn’t really have curves though, you just have to fiddle with exposure, contrast, highlights, and shadows.

See these graphics in use HERE.

I use invert to make lettering I’ve done in black on white paper, white on a black background instead. Click of a button, super easy.

See these graphics in use HERE.

Union App

This app is great because it has all of the blending modes that you’re used to seeing in Photoshop. You can make really fun double exposures with this app, which was the original reason I got it.

See more of my photography HERE.

But now I predominantly use this app to give my lettering different background colors, by using the “darken” or “lighten” blending mode.

See these graphics in use HERE.

See these graphics in use HERE.

Over

This is a basic text-over-background app, but it’s super easy to use and has some quality typefaces. I use Avenir to make backgrounds for the lettering graphics above.

See these graphics in use HERE.

For quotes I use Avenir and Georgia.

See these graphics in use HERE.

For display I use Playfair.

See these graphics in use HERE.

Snapchat

Favorite for last! Instead of making perfectly vectored lettering in Illustrator, I make handmade digital lettering in Snapchat. I love doing this so much that my friend and I actually started a project called Snapchat + Lettering. (Send your lettering to suzannahannah 👻)

Check out Snapchat + Lettering

Now, I use Snapchat to make featured images for articles I write.

Find out what the 5 BEST death novels are HERE.

What apps do you use to make Instagram graphics? Are there any good ones for vector graphics?