Milanote – https://milanote.com/ 

Milanote is an incredible piece of software. It is an easy-to-use tool to organize your ideas and projects into visual boards, allowing your mind to do less “where did I put that folder?” and more creative thinking . From creating mind maps to explore different ideas, to creating fully detailed storyboards and campaign schedules. It has everything.

We have used Milanote on a handful of projects in order to get ideas noted and developed. Being able to select from a huge range of templates means that Milanote can cater to any industry or service. You can also easily import your own documents to really make it your own, as well as having a big selection of stock imagery to use as placeholders. Great for early stage planning and getting ideas down.

Canva – https://www.canva.com/ 

If you have a great eye for design, but don’t have the patience to make things from scratch, then Canva is perfect for you. Canva is a brilliant app that allows you to create and design content optimised for ANYWHERE on the internet. Eliminating the need for expensive softwares, canva is a web app/phone app that takes your brand identity to a new level, with minimal effort. They have thousands of graphical assets able to be stretched, coloured and combined to make your content more engaging.

As your business grows, you can take some of the ideas that you established with Canva, and create your own unique brand guideline that will be your brand’s image going forward. But with the same issues with social media content being hard to  make an impact, Canva is easy to use and has an awesome selection of free options. Like Milanote, it has a large library of stock images too, so you don’t even need your own content to be creative. You can get creative straight away.

Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.co.uk/ 

The most well known app on this list, it’s often understated how useful this app is for graphic designers and creatives. This is because there is a misconception that pinterest is just a wall of content without a purpose. But Pintrest can offer real value when it comes to creative block, and refining your work. The ability to search through massive amounts of interesting content, and tailoring your interface to your behaviours means it’s truly a must have app for any creative.

People forget it is a social media platform, with content being posted up by millions of people everyday. The content heavy interface means it is easy to find eye-catching content that relates to your project. The graphic design community frequently borrow ideas and concepts from other artists, and Pinterest allows you to store interesting things for later. This means you can build up a backlog of interesting designs/ideas for you to come to when you feel in a creative slump.

Inkflow – https://www.qrayon.com/home/inkflow/ 

Inkflow is an app for phone/tablet that combines Microsoft paint with Milanote. This app is perfect for the people who are more visual note takers, as it offers a simple interface, with a white space to draw. The drawings are stored as boards (Similar to Milanote) which makes it easy to navigate between files, meaning you’ll never lose that idea you had on the train to work.

The other great thing about this app is its select tool. For a long time if you wanted to crop out sections of images or just shimmy one part a little to the left, you would have to use photoshop or something equivalent. Now you can just draw a circle around what you need, and resize, stretch, copy or move it across your document. It’s a great tool just to have on your phone to jot down ideas quickly or sketch simple illustrations.

Habitica – https://habitica.com/static/home 

So Habitica isn’t so much for the creative process, but it’s more for the people who feel like they don’t have the time to fully let their creative side out. It will allow you to structure your day properly, giving you more time to do the things you love. It isn’t like other organising apps, Habitica makes doing mundane/daily chores fun, and turns your life into a game.

A lot of people have amazing ideas and plans, but are let down by their own scheduling or time management. This means a big percentage of people will lose out on opportunities purely down to being unorganised. Habitca creates you as a character within a virtual world, with self created tasks gaining you xp points and levelling you up. Seeing visible progress so clearly is highly rewarding, and helps form good habits. After a month of using this app consistently,  your mind will start to continue these routines from memory. With a better grasp of where your time is going, it will help with showing you the best times you have to be creative.