How to Use Procreate for Graphic Design on iPad — Beginner Guide
If you've been putting off learning Procreate because it looks complicated, I get it. The canvas opens, and suddenly there are brushes everywhere, layers stacked up, and a colour wheel that doesn't behave like anything you've used before. Give it a week. Seriously. Procreate on iPad has a learning curve that flattens out fast, and once it does, you'll wonder how you ever designed without it.
This guide walks you through the essentials — setup, tools, workflow — without the fluff.
Why Procreate for Graphic Design?
Procreate isn't just a digital painting app. Designers use it for logo sketching, typography layouts, social media graphics, brand identity work, and illustration-based design every single day. It costs a one-time fee of around $12.99, runs beautifully on any iPad with Apple Pencil support, and exports files in PNG, PDF, PSD, and SVG formats. For the price of a lunch, you get a professional-grade design tool.
Setting Up Your Canvas the Right Way
When you create a new canvas in Procreate, don't just tap the default size. Go to Custom Canvas and think about what you're building.
Social media graphics (Instagram post): 1080 x 1080 px at 72 DPI
Print work (business cards, flyers): at least 300 DPI
Logo design: start large — 3000 x 3000 px — so you have room to scale down without losing quality
Set your colour profile to sRGB for screen work, and CMYK if you're designing for print. This one setting trips up a lot of beginners, and it's much harder to fix after you've already designed the whole piece.
Getting Comfortable with the Interface
Procreate keeps the workspace clean. The toolbar across the top has everything you'll use constantly: brush selector, smudge, erase, layers panel, colour picker, and the undo/redo buttons (those two left-finger taps you'll use constantly).
A few gestures that change everything:
Pinch to zoom — obvious, but do it often
Two-finger tap — instant undo
Three-finger swipe down — brings up copy/paste/cut options
Hold the brush after a stroke — snaps your line straight or to a perfect shape
These gestures sound small. They're not. Once they're muscle memory, your speed doubles.
Layers: The Most Important Concept in Procreate
If you come from a background in Photoshop or Illustrator, layers will feel familiar. If you're new to design software entirely, here's the deal: every element you draw can live on its own layer, which means you can move, delete, or change it without touching anything else on the canvas.
For graphic design specifically:
Put your background on the bottom layer
Keep text elements on separate layers
Group related layers using the pinch gesture on multiple selected layers
Use clipping masks to apply textures or colour fills only to a specific shape below
One thing to watch — Procreate limits your layer count based on canvas size and iPad model. If you hit the ceiling, start merging layers that are definitely finished.
Brushes That Actually Matter for Design Work
Procreate ships with hundreds of brushes. For graphic design (as opposed to illustration), you'll realistically use about five.
Monoline (in Calligraphy) — clean, consistent lines, great for icons and simple shapes
Technical Pen (in Inking) — crisp edges for logos and lettering
Studio Pen — slightly softer, good for hand-lettering projects
Soft Airbrush — blending backgrounds or adding subtle shadows
Dry Ink — adds texture to type or brush-lettered work
You can also import free brush packs from sites like Brushes App or Creative Market. Procreate's native .brush format is easy to install — just tap the file and it loads.
Working with Text and Typography
Procreate's text tool is under Add > Add Text. It's basic compared to what you'd get in Illustrator, but it handles most design needs. You can import custom fonts directly from iOS — download a .ttf or .otf font file, tap it, and it installs system-wide.
For serious typography-based graphic design, many designers sketch the layout and hand-letter key elements directly in Procreate, then export to Affinity Designer or Adobe Illustrator for final refinement. That hybrid workflow is actually very common in the industry.
Tap the wrench icon > Share to export. For most design work:
PNG — web graphics, transparent backgrounds
PSD — if you're handing off to someone using Photoshop
SVG — scalable vector export (limited, but useful for simple designs)
One important note: Procreate is a raster-based app at its core. If you're designing a logo that needs to scale to a billboard, do your final cleanup in a vector program. Use Procreate to concept, sketch, and develop the visual — then refine in a vector tool.
A Simple Workflow to Start With
Don't overthink your first few projects. A basic Procreate design workflow looks like this:
Set up your canvas with correct dimensions and DPI
Block in rough shapes on separate layers
Refine with cleaner lines on new layers above
Add colour fills using Alpha Lock or Clipping Masks
Add text, adjust sizing and placement
Flatten only what's done, keep flexibility in anything you might revise
Export in the right format for your use case
Procreate won't replace a full vector design suite for every job, and it doesn't need to. What it does — fast sketching, fluid illustration, intuitive gesture-based workflow, Apple Pencil precision — it does better than almost anything else on the market at that price point.
Start with small projects. A social media graphic. A hand-lettered quote. A logo sketch. Get the gestures into your hands, get comfortable with layers, and stop worrying about the brushes you're not using yet.
The designers who get good at Procreate aren't the ones who watched the most tutorials. They're the ones who opened a blank canvas and just started.
