Strip Designer

Upon opening the application, the user is shown a quick splash screen and introduced to the template menu. There is an excellent help feature in the top right with a search feature that provides detailed guidance for the user. There is also an option to ‘Import’ a design from a range of sources. Once you are ready to create there is a range of templates to choose from including film strips, pages, colourful pages and more. We love the fact there is also an option to choose your photos before you choose the template. Once one of the many templates has been chosen you can decide on the amount of panels you wish to have on your comic page.

For this review we will focus on the tools that will be used most by the users.

Inserting a Photo – Simply hold on the chosen panel and insert a photo from the camera roll. This also links to a number of external applications such as Facebook, the live camera, Dropbox and more. Once the photo is inserted you can change its appearance. You can position the photo, enlarge it, reduce it, rotate it and add a filter. Strip designer includes a number of filters such as halftone, sketch, grayscale, sepia and includes vignettes and a fantastic option to draw and add text. The list of tools is remarkable. We found the zooming and panning features flawless and smooth however when using the application on a mobile device it can be a little tricky. Turning the mobile device landscape can help this.

Adding text – So for our younger users we found that adding photos and adding text were the two features that they used the most. With just these two tools they were able to create a realistic comic book. The text can be added as a typed cell, a balloon or an effect text. The ‘effect texts’ are wonderful and have numerous options applying stunning graphics. We also love the sticker options which give the comic a real marvel comic feel. These stickers can be created yourself of choose from a vast selection. All of these text effects can be edited further with options such as opacity, warping, perspective and rotation.

The app also includes the possibility to install fonts from Dropbox or free fonts online.

The share feature within the app will appeal to teachers and children. The ability to share over platforms is a great feature and will make classroom design a little less stressful.

We love the fact that the app saves the comic even if it is accidentally shut down by the user. Simply tap the "My Comics" button to browse through all your comics.

Once you have finished a comic you can preview the final result in every detail. In preview mode you can zoom in and out and pan. Of course preview can be done in both portrait and landscape orientations.

This app has endless possibilities and the menu options are vast. It’s safe to say that for some younger users there maybe too many options as we found our users were sometimes lost in the navigation.

The developers may consider a link to a classroom plan of how the app could be used by teachers or printable storyboard resources where the child can plan the comic before they design it. They might also consider a gallery option where class designs can be shared as a whole or samples of comics can be seen to gain inspiration.

We were simply blown away by this application and the detail that has gone into the editing options and templates. We enjoyed the fact that a comic can be created very easily with photos and simple text effects, however there is real opportunities to really drill down into the editing options where the user can explore the apps true potential. There are many comic strip applications available on the Appstore but this is by far one of the best and great value for money. This app comes highly recommended by The Educational Appstore.

Features:

• More than a 100 page templates with 1 to 9 photo cells

• Multipage books

• Create your own layouts with up-to 12 photo cells

• Many different balloon types (tails and heads)

• Balloons can have multiple tails and be combined

• Text with per-letter colors, fonts

• Change ballon size, rotation, color, and transparency

• 3D, warp and perspective text

• Use any iOS font or install additional fonts

• More than 150 stickers to insert for additional impact

• Page effects to give your pages old look

• Dropbox and WebDAV download/upload support

• Easy publish on Facebook, Flickr and Twitter

• Download and insert photos directly from Facebook

• Export to PDF to create real comic books

• PDF import (for both cells and custom stickers)

• Control scale, position, and rotation of photos

• Integrated drawing and masking tools to create your own drawings, paint on photos, or make your own stickers

• Many different cell styles

• Photo filters

• Freely pan and zoom while you work

• Insert maps

• iCloud sync across devices

• Support for iOS's third party document providers (e.g. Google Drive)

• Layers view to lock or reorder layers

• Shared iPad (for education) setup through MDM configuration

You can download Strip Designer on your iOS devices from the Apple App Store.