Procreate. Is It A Useful Program? March 9th, 2021
When discussing technology in graphic design you are talking about thousands of devices, apps, and programs that designers around the world use to create their media. Something recently that I have been interested in is the application Procreate. I don’t have an iPad currently but on instagram and other sites I’ve seen more and more art and design created with this application. For this post I am going to focus on Procreate and if it is actually worth shelling out the cash for an iPad to use the program.
What does Procreate do? Procreate is an application meant for illustrators and designers wanting to use hand drawn elements in their work without actually having to get out pen and paper. Why is this useful you might ask? Because it removes the need to draw an image, scan it into the computer, and trace it on Adobe applications such as Illustrator or Photoshop. When discussing this application with a colleague who’s worked in the graphic design field for many many years, she said that Procreate was something she didn’t quite understand how to use. For her it was just one more program she’d have to learn to stay up with the constant change in technology within our field. She had played around with it from time to time but hadn’t actually focused on if it was useful to her design practice.
What might make Procreate useful to someone in the graphic design field? Procreate works a lot like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop because of its use of layers. You can export with transparent backgrounds, create brushes that are custom, and export final images as PSD. Having the ability to cross over from Procreate to other Adobe programs makes Procreate ideal for doing “hand drawings” compared to other programs such as Inkscape.
Where Procreate would be useful to me is when I’m doing illustrations for brochures and posters. As someone who struggles to draw with a mouse on Adobe Illustrator, Procreate might be a better option. On the flipside there are also easier solutions to that problem like using a Wacom tablet. I think at the end of the day, it comes down to if you want to learn a whole new program or if you want to keep the ones you’ve always had. Procreate might go out of style in a few years, and iPads are expensive. I think it’s really up to the user about if Procreate is useful, or just another tool that you have to learn.
