Part of what makes Apple’s iPad experience if convincing is the versatility of the tablet. At the time when I reviewed the new iPad Air with M3, I called the multiple ways of using it: Touch, Apple Pencil or via a magic keyboard. It is a fairly winning formula.
In the United States, it was the week of the small business last week, and I had the chance to chat with Mandy Corcoran, a surface designer whose work was used on products sold at Home Goods, Tjmaxx and Nordstrom Rack, to name a few.
Now, I like a good design in its own right, but the angle of technology is deeply deep Amanda Grace Design – Use an iPad Pro, Apple Crayer and Procreate to do everything.
It all started in 2018 on Christmas morning when her husband gave her an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, and as Corcoran says, “it has changed everything.”
“I downloaded Procreat that day, and something just clicked,” she said, noting that Apple Crayt was natural. After having sketched digitally in Procretate, she realized that it would be a broader part of her life.
Before jumping in design work, Corcoran was rooted in technology; She was a programmer, which she described as a logic very based on logic – “It is a structure, a flow and a problem solving, which has always seduced my brain. When I found the design of seamless patterns in Procreat, it was like a creative extension of this state of mind. ” And it started with the drawing – Pre -iPad – using a Cintiq Wacom and Adobe Photoshop.
When she designs models with Procreat, Corcoran says that it allows her to use her “technological brain” in a creative way. She explains that there is mathematical precision in the process of creation and design, because it needs to adapt to various conceptions together, to determine the right flow and, ultimately, something significant.
“For me, it is a question of giving tools to people to unlock their creativity more quickly,” explains Corcoran on the creation of models and models. She noted that when she started, there were not many models or graphics to help the layout and Eyeflow.
Thus, when she started to design, she plunged deeply into the application and the ecosystem, learning each part. This helped her create his first course and become one of the first educators offering customizable models in 2023.
And its concentration, or special sauce, is really all around the surface design – creating the tools itself, but also offering lessons to allow others to create with these tools and to design their own.
It is sort of an ipad ecosystem for design, and a good thing. She explains it as: “I manage a design company, creates online courses, construction models, testing brushes”, all on the iPad, and it is a device where it can live everything without worrying if there is enough power or speed.
Corcoran uses an iPad Pro, a 13 inch with the M4 chip under the hood. In PK Press Club tests, it has incredibly worked well, allowing you to ignite almost all the tasks you want on an iPad and perform more intensive creative workflows without hook.
She was a fan of the Apple pencil, describing it as “an extension of your thought”. Corcoran used the Apple Crayer Pro with its iPad Pro, which offers a little more features, including the management of the barrel roller and the compression functionality.
“As a person who likes to create systems, I really appreciate how the steering wheel, the double tap and now tighten with Apple Crayer Pro give me shortcuts at my fingertips – without ever lowering my pencil. It’s huge, ”explains Corcoran.
The use of any set in Procreat and other creative applications, this allows more precision when creating a design, and when Corcoran teaches, it is an easier way to explain “how to move more quickly” and with more confidence.
It is clear that the iPad and the Apple pencil were a key element in Corcoran’s career, allowing it to create its own business, but also to encourage others to create and design for themselves. “The iPad and the Apple pencil allowed me to build a creative career according to my own conditions – and this is not something that I want for granted.”
In addition, she says that you don’t need to be an expert to start being creative on iPad, to encourage people and PK Press Club readers to “open an application like Procreat, Tap The Around and start playing”.
A few weeks ago, on April 26, 2025, at the Apple Carnegie store in Washington, DC, Corcoran organized a session today in Apple for 30 participants on creation in Procreate using models around a fruit theme. She described her as a full circle moment, allowing her to teach what has changed life for her.
After having created countless models and conceptions – some now appeared on products in the main retailers – she left the crowd by feeling inspired and confident.
“Some people later told me that they had never even realized how many things in their lives had models – and that it opened their eyes in a completely new way,” noted Corcoran.
