What softwares do you use – daily?

What apps can you not do without – daily?

I’m sure some apps come to mind that you WISH you could do without, but need, despite  their “features” and intuitive interface. But wait…

What about the apps you are happy to use? Do some come to mind? Some you enjoy using? This post is about one of those…Sketchbook.

Autodesk nailed this one.

Kudos to the geeks at Autodesk for this one. I tip my hat to you folks there.

Sketchbook – this is definitely one of my keepers.

Need to sketch and doodle with a client? It does that.

Need to draw over a Google Earth image? It does that.

Need to sketch over a photo you just took? Explain a detail to a contractor? Compare information in a series of overlaid images? Combine images? Create a graphic image?

Yes, yes, yes, and YES!

This one does that, too.

Sketchbook is one of my go-to apps I have referenced before and use every day. With a little time upfront to understand the basics and capabilities, it proves to be a fluid, intuitive, and incredibly flexible app.

You can find tutorials – there are probably thousands of great tutorials on techniques, applications, and videos of people doing incredibly realistic, stylized, and generally great looking illustrations and images.

While this is all well and good, I seldom work in this app ALONE (almost all of the blog images I use are altered or otherwise created for these posts in Sketchbook). Generally speaking, most of my experience in this app is with an “audience” – with collaborators, in meetings, with clients – and sometimes tethered to a big screen in a conference room. I am able to take their site, their plan, images of their space, and converse with them about THEIR project – right then and there.

When this happens, we find clients take ownership in the project, have buy-in, and understand how and why things are the way they are. What could be better?

I cannot encourage you enough to try this app. Plunk down the subscription price and go Pro – you get loads of brushes and abilities that you (understandably) do not get in the free version. Students: take the money you would otherwise waste on some emoji app and spend it on something seriously good. It’s reasonable and professional – you will not be disappointed. College/Architecture school professors:  learn this – teach this – the offices of your graduates will be the better for it.

Couple of things I wish it did: collaborative drawing with more than one stylus at a time on a screen. How sweet would that be? Also: drawing to scale. So all you folks out there go ahead and tell me about TRACE. I hope to get to that one soon in a post. For now, Sketchbook.

I don’t have a YouTube tutorial because there are so many great ones out there already – go check them out – but I DO have a short video illustrating how it integrates with other apps on my iPad Pro – magic, I tell you.

This is but a sampling – I’m sure you are a quick study – see what you can do with it. Let me know.

Oh, and as Mr. Jobs used to say, one more thing. It can record your sketches, creating a video file of your sketchbook creation. If you are interested in that sort of thing, it’s great to work into a video presentation about your projects, making them truly conversational. See how that word keeps coming back?

Did I mention it also has a desktop version?

Yes, yes it does.

The mobile app and the desktop version are all licensed under your one account with Autodesk. What are you waiting for? The desktop app does even more than the mobile app (draw in perspective with straight vanishing lines!).

Let me know how you use the app’s features and how it affects your process, conversations, and design efforts. I predict you will find a place for this app in your inventory of software.

AND if you are in an office NOT using this app, be the first to do so. Set the bar – if they shoot your efforts down, we are always hiring…just saying.

Look it over. Enjoy.

Breath deep, design is in the air. (I recalled that from years ago – thanks, Dave).