Out of the 200,000 apps that Apple keeps banging on about, I want to share the apps I use and what I think would be handy for other designers.

myPantone
While I love fanning through a physical Pantone swatch book, this is the next best thing. myPantone is a great reference tool when out visiting a client or when you don’t have access to the swatches themselves.

It has a nifty feature where it can extract colours from an existing image or from one you take and it will give you 5 matched Pantone swatches.

Here’s an example.

It can also give you an RGB, LAB and HTML breakdown of the Pantone colour of your choice.

You can also keep swatches you like or use often, and drag them to a palette to keep, email or send to another device. While it won’t replace the actual books, it’s a great campanion.

http://www.pantone.com

Typography Manual
This would have to be my favourite app, because it’s such a comprehensive reference tool for designers. It gives you a history of typography, the basics of type, explanation of type families, classification, etc. It also goes on to explain alignment, hierarchy, hyphenation, indents, hanging punctuation, kerning, ligatures, point sizes and so on.

While you should already know most of this, the best bit about this app, is the Resources section, under which you will find Conversion Tables, an Em Calculator, Font Size Ruler, HTML Characters, Mac Keyboard Characters, Paper Sizes, Web Banner Sizes and Periodicals (mags) to name a few. This app is amazing and thoroughly recommend buying this one.

http://typographyapp.com/

The Font Game
Yes, this is a game, but you’ll find it a great way to test your cranium and see just how many fonts are stored in that memory bank of yours. I’m even amazed at the results. I know a lot of fonts. Disturbing to non-creatives, but game-on against other designers in your studio.

Choose from 3 levels of difficulty. A word appears on your screen, giving you 4 multiple choice answers, select the font you think fits, it turns either red or green and moves onto the next font. Play against the timer to beat your personal best or openly compete against others at the online hall of fame (if you have the guts).

http://fontgameapp.com/

What the font
This is a clever little app, designed by MyFonts. Take a photo or use a saved one and it will upload the image and tell you the name of the font or its closest match.

It works best with just a few large letters, an image that doesn’t have a busy background that doesn’t interfere with the text and try to get the text as horizontal as possible.

This app needs to be connected to your WiFi in order to work.

http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/iPhone/

Talking Carl
Oh I threw in Talking Carl, because you’ll always need someone to discuss and bounce your ideas off. Why not bounce them off Carl. He repeats everything you say, so you’re rarely wrong.

I am often found talking to Carl, telling him; “Lisa you’re the best, you do awesome work”. He repeats it back instantly. You can see why I love this app and you’ll come to enjoy it too. Tickle him as you tell a joke and he’ll laugh right on cue. So it’s not a design app, but lots of fun.

http://www.awyse.com/talkingcarl/TalkingCarl.html

To find out more information about these apps, visit iTunes or click on the developers website.