Top 10 Creativity Apps for Your Mobile Phone (2023)
Unlock creativity on your mobile with top apps for artists, designers, and creators.
Have you ever stared at a blank page, feeling the urge to create something, but found yourself stuck in a creative block, not knowing how to start? You’re not alone. Creativity can be a fickle friend. It might inspire you with ideas at 3 AM and then vanish when you’re ready to work. But here’s some uplifting news: Your smartphone, the device you carry with you everywhere, could be the secret key to overcoming that creative block and igniting your creative spark.
These apps we’re talking about are more than just tools. They’re like friendly nudges to help you think differently, have fun, and try new things. They’re all about letting your creativity flow. So whether you like to paint, write, make music, or just come up with cool ideas, these apps are made for you.
Procreate
Offers a wide array of features for professional artists and hobbyists, including handmade brushes, advanced layering, and ultra-high-definition canvases on iPad.
Procreate is designed exclusively for the iPad. It’s a tool loved by both professional artists and hobbyists, offering a wide array of features to create expressive sketches, rich paintings, gorgeous illustrations, and beautiful animations.
The app provides hundreds of handmade brushes, an advanced layering system, and is powered by the Valkyrie graphics engine, allowing for ultra-high-definition canvases up to 16k by 8k on compatible iPad Pros. Procreate’s interface is designed for the iPad and Apple Pencil, and it includes innovative features like QuickShape for perfect shapes, 3D painting, animated export, and more. Users can also import and export custom brushes, including Adobe Photoshop brushes.
Adobe Fresco
Tailored for artists of all skill levels, it provides three types of brushes and integrates with Creative Cloud, allowing art synchronization across devices.
Adobe Fresco is a free drawing and painting app (with subscription options available) designed for artists of all skill levels, specifically tailored for the iPad with Apple Pencil and iPhone.
The app offers three types of brushes: Live brushes that mimic watercolors and oils, Pixel brushes that replicate mediums like charcoal and pastel, and Vector brushes for crisp, scalable designs.
Users can create digital art, experiment with Photoshop brushes, and enjoy features like motion tools, Snap to Shape, and live brushes. Fresco also integrates with Creative Cloud, allowing artists to sync and take their art anywhere.
Linearity Curve
Designed for marketing teams, it offers AI features, customizable templates, and advanced vector tools to create captivating content.
Developed by Linearity GmbH, Linearity Curve is an app designed to empower marketing teams to create captivating content. This app offers a wide range of features to bring your stories to life.
Whether you’re crafting social media posts, brand visuals, print materials, or intricate marketing illustrations, this tool can be all you need. It includes time-saving AI features like single-tap background removal and Auto Trace for vector paths, over 800 customizable templates, and access to over 1 million royalty-free images.
The app also offers convenient shortcuts, intuitive gesture controls, and powerful tools for drawing, shaping, and painting. You can create custom color palettes, import color palettes from third-party tools, and utilize advanced vector tools to simplify your design flow.
It supports various file formats and is compatible with Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Sketch, and Creative Cloud.
Concepts
A flexible sketchbook app with an infinite canvas and realistic pens, pencils, and brushes, allowing every stroke to be editable and scalable.
Concepts is a sketchbook app designed to take your ideas from concept to reality. It offers a flexible and dynamic workspace where users can sketch plans, make notes, doodles, mind maps, draw storyboards, product sketches, and designs. With an infinite canvas and various paper types and grids, Concepts provides realistic pens, pencils, and brushes that respond to pressure, tilt, and velocity.
The app is vector-based, allowing every stroke to be editable and scalable.
Pret-a-Template
A fashion design app offering thousands of templates and a “Puzzle Look” feature for personalized fashion sketches.
Pret-a-Template is a fashion design app designed specifically for the iPad. It has been a favorite among fashion designers and enthusiasts, offering a dynamic and minimalist interface that brings life to creations. Users can access thousands of fashion-related templates, including bodies, garments, shoes, bags, and accessories, and create sketches with realistic brushes, fabric patterns, and custom color palettes.
The app also features a “Puzzle Look” that allows users to select from various outfits, hairstyles, and accessories to create personalized templates. The app’s features include a fashion sketchbook with unlimited pages, over 1,000 templates, organization and labeling of projects in custom folders, support for Apple Pencil, and SharePlay for group projects.
ibis Paint X
A painting app with over 15,000 brushes, materials, and fonts, and features like stroke stabilization and social networking for learning.
ibis Paint X is a painting app that offers an extensive range of features that surpasses many desktop drawing applications. With over 15,000 brushes, materials, and fonts, 80 filters, 46 screentones, and 27 blending modes, users can create intricate and professional artwork.
The app also includes stroke stabilization, various ruler features, and clipping mask features. Users can record their drawing process as a video and learn from other users through the app’s social networking feature. The app offers a smooth drawing experience with OpenGL technology and provides advanced layer and manga features, including layer duplication, inversion, rotation, and advanced text tool functions.
There are free and paid versions, with the latter removing ads, and a Prime Membership option that adds extra features like 20GB of cloud storage and premium filters.
Morpholio Trace
A design and architecture app ideal for professionals, allowing layered sketching, drawing markup, and designer tools.
Morpholio Trace is a design and architecture app that serves as a unique drawing tool, allowing users to develop ideas in layers, communicate through drawing markup, and work seamlessly through all phases of the design process.
The app is ideal for professionals like architects, interior designers, landscape architects, and others in creative fields. Users can sketch buildings, layout renovations, markup construction site photos, draw floor plans, and more to scale using designer tools, brushes, and pens. It also offers features like sketch recording, instant scale, scale ruler, and color palette maker.
Canva
A digital content creation tool with features for professional use, social media design, and live collaboration, with additional Pro features for customization.
Canva is a well-known tool among digital content creators. It offers a variety of features for professional use. For instance, Canva provides Workplace Templates to maintain brand consistency. It also has Talking Presentations, which are ideal for remote-friendly presentations. Additionally, it offers Charts and Infographics to help visualize complex data. Plus, it has live collaboration tools to work together in real-time.
For those who are active on social media, Canva has a lot to offer as well. You can use it to create and schedule posts, ensuring your content is always timely. It’s also great for designing banners to make your profile stand out. Furthermore, you can use Canva to make cards, invitations, and collages, adding a personal touch to your social media presence.
Mojo
Enhances social media content creation with animated templates, video editing, and customization, suitable for influencers and small businesses.
Mojo is useful when it comes to enhancing social media content creation, particularly for Instagram Stories, Reels, and posts. With over 500 unique animated templates, original text styles, background music, and more, users can create professional-looking content effortlessly.
The app offers a wide range of features including video editing with special effects and filters, unique text styles with text overlay effects, a royalty-free audio library, the ability to add personal photos and videos, animated stickers, and multi-page story creation. For e-commerce, branding, and personalization,
Mojo Pro offers additional functionalities like background removal, e-commerce templates, and customization with fonts, logos, and brand colors. Mojo is suitable for influencers, content creators, small businesses, and e-shops, aiming to provide top-quality content that captures attention across various social media platforms.
Sketchbook
Designed for professional and hobbyist sketching, offering customizable tools and a Premium Bundle for additional functionalities like custom brushes and exporting to PDF.
Sketchbook is designed for sketching, painting, and drawing, catering to both professional artists and hobbyists. The app offers a professional-grade feature set with highly customizable tools, including various brush types like pencils, markers, airbrushes, and more, that mimic their physical counterparts.
Users can also enjoy features like guides, rulers, stroke tools for precision, layers with blend modes, and an elegant interface that provides a natural drawing experience free of distractions. The Premium Bundle unlocks additional functionalities such as importing and exporting brushes, creating custom brushes, additional color harmonies and gradients, layer grouping, masking blend modes, and exporting to PDF.