5 TOOLS THAT WILL SPARK YOUR CREATIVITY
JOT
DOWN YOUR THOUGHTS, WRITE WITHOUT DISTRACTIONS, SHARE A VIRTUAL WHITEBOARD, AND
MORE.
It’d be great to be
able to go from zero to maximum creativity at the drop of a hat. Most of us,
however, need to ramp up quite a bit. Whether you’re looking for a little shot
of inspiration or you’ve got a great idea that you don’t want to get away,
these apps can help.
If you’re looking for
some inspiration, check out Behance (Android,iOS). The app boasts millions of projects from popular
creative types working in fashion, design, photography, architecture, and a
slew of other professions. You can follow your favorite people to keep up with
what they’re working on, and showcase your own work as well. Behance—which is owned
by Adobe—claims that big creative companies use the app to look for talent, so
it might even be a way to drum up some business.
Should inspiration
strike while you’re out and about, Skitch (Android,iOS), from popular online note-keeper Evernote, lets you snap
photos and then mark them up with notes and doodles. You can scrawl on photos
that are already on your camera roll or even annotate maps if you need to
remind yourself to revisit certain places. Notes can be shared via Facebook,
email, and messaging services, and you can add the ability to mark up PDFs for
$5.
Available for Android
tablets and the iPad, Wacom’s Bamboo Paper (Android, iOS) turns your slate into a sketchbook. Depending upon what
you’re trying to get done, there are four styles available—visual thinking,
note-taking, journaling, art creation—with a handful of pen types for you to
use to jot your ideas down. Your creations can be shared to popular social
networks or saved to various cloud-based storage services, and the app works
with various styluses (Wacom recommends its own, of course).
Nothing spoils a good
wordfest like distractions, so if you’re looking for clutter-free writing
tools, take JotterPad (Android) and Werdsmith (iOS) for a spin. Each features a clean interface so you
can focus on getting your ideas onto the page, and cloud-based saving ensures
you can access your latest drafts from multiple devices. JotterPad sports
features such as exclusive fonts; Werdsmith offers motivational goals and your
own writer profile.
SyncSpace (Android, iOS) acts as a shareable, zoomable whiteboard that you and
your cohorts can collaborate on in real time. Synchronization can be done
between Android and Apple devices, which is a nice plus, and inviting others to
join in on your brainstorming session is as simple as sending an email or text
message. The free version is limited to three drawings but is otherwise fully
featured.
Let your mind wander
with SimpleMind(Android, iOS), a powerful, yet easy-to-use mind-mapping app that sports
drag-and-drop topics, tagging, and various visual styles.
BY DOUG AAMOTH
http://www.fastcompany.com/3045379/app-economy/free-app-friday-5-tools-that-will-spark-your-creativity
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