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"If you're a creative with a penchant for eking out the best tools to help you produce the goods, 2012 saw a slew of handy apps that could help you in your endeavors.\r\n\r\nIndeed, The Next Web covered thousands of apps throughout this year, from nifty new browser extensions, to the latest game-changing Android and iOS apps, so we sifted through the archives and pulled out some of best apps for designers, developers and creatives in 2012\u2026just for you.\r\n\r\nDon\u2019t miss\u00A0our other 2012 lists\u00A0for more great recommendations.\r\n\r\nPop: Prototyping on paper\r\n\r\nPop's iOS app is every designer\u2019s missing puzzle piece for prototyping on paper.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAmid a myriad of prototyping tools, Pop is an insanely useful way to explore user experience problems and\u00A0share iPhone app concepts\u00A0with others.\r\n\r\nSimply sketch out your idea, take a few pictures and then link buttons to create a functioning mock-up that can be shared across Twitter, Facebook, messages and email.\r\n\r\n\u27A4 Pop: Prototyping on Paper | iOS\r\n\r\nKern.js\r\n\r\nThe Kern.js bookmarklet puts you back in control of your site\u2019s typography.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nKern.js takes advantage of the Lettering.js plugin, but simplifies the implementation so you can make visual adjustments directly on top of your live site.\r\n\r\nSimply drag the bookmarklet to your browser, activate it on the page you\u2019re refining, click a letter and start tweaking. Once you\u2019re done, click the check mark and copy the CSS styles. That\u2019s all.\r\n\r\n\u27A4 Kern.js\r\n\r\nAutodesk 123D Design\r\n\r\n\r\nAutodesk\u2019s 123D Design app turns everyone into 3D modellers, letting users create models from a totally blank canvas, and receive a physical product in the post within weeks.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAvailable for iPad, Mac, Web and PC, the 3D-modeling tool provides base shapes and template models that get things going past the initial blank canvas and straight into the design.\r\n\r\n\u27A4 Autodesk 123D Design\r\n\r\nAutodesk 123D Catch\r\n\r\nUnlike 123D Design, which lets you create 3D models from scratch and was also launched this year, Autodesk's 123D Catch\u00A0allows users to transform photos into 3D models.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe app is available for Web, iPad and PC, and allows users to take up to\u00A040 photos of a specific object, which are then uploaded to Autodesk Cloud for processing. From there, the 3D model can be rotated on the tablet, shared, or even printed by a 3D printer like\u00A0MakerBot.\r\n\r\n\u27A4\u00A0123D Catch\r\n\r\nDropr\r\n\r\nDropr is an impressive portfolio platform for creatives to showcase their work and seek inspiration.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nWhen you first sign up, you can either do so using your Facebook, Twitter or Google credentials. Or, you can simply create a fresh account within Dropr itself.\r\n\r\nOnce in, you can also choose to connect with your existing networks, including Vimeo, LinkedIn, Flickr, SoundCloud, MySpace and Behance. This is not only designed to help with your exposure, but also to ease the content-importing process.\r\n\r\nDropr has a decent array of content on board, with portfolios and projects aplenty to feast your eyes on. And from within your Dashboard, you can manage all your interactions, messages and inspirations.\r\n\r\n\u27A4 Dropr\r\n\r\nHow to Draw and Paint\r\n\r\nHow to Draw and Paint was Future Publishing's attempt at getting folk, well, drawing and painting. The iPad app was its latest addition to its digital arsenal, with each edition arriving with interactive content that shows readers how to use Photoshop to create digital artwork in a particular style.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe series kicked off with How to Draw &amp;amp;amp; Paint Manga in its first issue, featuring a gallery of well-known manga artists, whilst incorporating animated lessons on how to get to grips with the basics of the genre.\r\n\r\n\u27A4 How to Draw and Paint | iPad\r\n\r\nBrekkie\r\n\r\nBrekkie is a daily, bite-sized digest of\u00A0advertising, design and marketing inspiration.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThis iPad app\u00A0isn't a massive directory, with piles of jaw-dropping stats, photos and guides. Instead, it's simply something for creatives to wake up to, with a single, carefully selected video, image, article and quote to get those juices flowing.\r\n\r\n\u27A4\u00A0Brekkie | iPad\r\n\r\nCaseApp\r\n\r\nRather than buy a standard iPhone case that looks the same as everyone else\u2019s, CaseApp lets you design your own personalized cover, in just a few minutes.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCaseApp is an iOS app, and lets you design your cover entirely from your phone, including customization and ordering.\r\n\r\nYou can either tap in to any photo on your phone using the image for the entire case, or incorporate it into a set of more than twenty pre-designed themes. There's even one that looks like an old-school Nintendo Gameboy.\r\n\r\n\u27A4 CaseApp | iOS\r\n\r\nPowerSketch\r\n\r\nAs with retro photo apps, there are already a slew of photo-to-sketch apps out there, but PowerSketch is a worthy addition to the family offering a simple, streamlined way to quickly turn your images into artwork. Oh, and PowerSketch also lets you create arty videos based on the exact same effects available for your photos.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nYou can either capture an image directly from you iOS device, or import an existing one from your camera roll. You then just hit the \u2018edit\u2019 button in the top right-hand corner and you\u2019re presented with a serious of 'sketch' options.\r\n\r\nA particularly cool feature, too, is that it lets you combine your \u2018sketches\u2019 to create photo collages. There are 16 effects to choose from, before \u2018saving\u2019 to your device or opting to share with the social sphere.\r\n\r\n\u27A4 PowerSketch | iOS\r\n\r\nDIY\r\n\r\nKnowing that kids are some of the most curious and creative creatures on Earth, a new company called DIY wants to build tools and communities for kids' creative juices to flow and flourish, with a little help from technology.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe startup's ambition is for DIY to be the first app and online community in every kid\u2019s life. On launch, DIY constituted a site and iOS app that gives curious kids who like to build things a place to share their creativity, as well as save it for posterity to check out later in life.\r\n\r\n\u27A4 DIY: Web | iOS\r\n\r\nTorbit Insight\r\n\r\nIf you run a website, the chances are you know how important the loading times are to keeping visitors on your pages. And Torbet Insight lets you see exactly what load times mean as far as conversions go.\r\n\r\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8F2W58Ay2A&amp;amp;amp;feature=player_embedded\r\n\r\nTorbit is a suite of services that optimizes the front-end of your website to make it faster. But simply making it faster only tells you half of the story - Torbit Insight should fill in the blanks by giving you real user measurement of how fast your site is loading. With Insight, you should be able to get a granular view of what\u2019s slowing down your site, why it happens and who\u2019s clicking the back button because of it.\r\n\r\n\u27A4\u00A0Torbit Insight\r\n\r\nSlicy\r\n\r\nPhotoshop users know it can be a battle moving their work from the image editor into files that are ready for the Web. Everyone has their own workflow for this process but, when you\u2019re creating on a fully-fledged website, having to export a load of assets manually can be a drag. This is where Slicy comes in.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nSlicy for Mac takes your Photshop layer groups and turns them into files that are ready for upload, saving designers loads of time in the process.\r\n\r\nTo use Slicy simply name your layer groups the same as the file you want to create for them (like logo.png,\u00A0for example).\u00A0Then, drop your final PSD into the app and your files will be extracted and saved. That\u2019s all.\r\n\r\n\u27A4 Slicy | Mac\r\n\r\nWix\r\n\r\nWith more than 20 million users, Wix has long been the king of website builders, an empire built atop Flash. But the company officially dived into the deep end with HTML5 this year with its new website builder.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe new launch arrived with much of the original Flash-based builder\u2019s functionality, packed into a more flexible tool, and Wix does an impressive job of maintaining diverse themes to help nudge users in the right direction. Furthermore, the actual product automatically maintains consistency amongst styles to keep things like fonts compatible throughout an entire site.\r\n\r\n\u27A4\u00A0\u00A0Wix\u00A0HTML5 Flash Builder\r\n\r\nDoodle.ly\r\n\r\nIf you\u2019re a fan of\u00A0Draw Something then you\u2019ll love the social network Doodle.ly, which serves as a much welcome home to those who can\u2019t get enough of sketching fun little pieces of artwork using their iPad.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe site, which describes itself as &amp;quot;a social sketchpad for self-expression, creativity and inspiration&amp;quot;, lets you create and share your wonderful pieces of art on Twitter and Facebook, as well as on the Doodle.ly site itself.\r\n\r\nThe Doodle.ly iPad app brings a much better drawing experience, and has the pencil, ballpoint pen, highlighter, marker, and eraser that the site lets you use. You\u2019ll also be able to browse work done by others, which will surely help the network grow once it gets more social features.\r\n\r\n\u27A4 Doodle.ly: Web | iPad\r\n\r\nHopefully you\u2019ll be able to find at least a few apps here that have thus far escaped your radar. And if you want to check out the best productivity, lifehack, travel, media, photo, video, employment, education and job-hunting apps of 2012 too, be sure to check our other roundups from the past week.\r\n\r\nDisclosure: This article contains affiliate links. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our\u00A0Terms of Service."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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