Review by Dana Villamagna, Common Sense Education | Updated July 2012
Get it now
  • Download from App Store

Strip Designer

Get it now
  • Download from App Store

Easy and fun way to create personalized, comic-book-style stories

Subjects & skills
Subjects
  • English Language Arts
Skills
  • Communication & Collaboration
Grades This grade range is a recommendation by Common Sense Education and not the developer/publisher.
4–8
Great for:
Common Sense says (See details)
Teachers say (2 Reviews)
Price:  $2.99
Platforms:  iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch

Take a look inside

5 images
Use photos, drawings, and other images to enhance the visual expression.
Students can get as complex with their comic designs as time and their imaginations will allow.
Use of multiple photos, colors, words, and stickers can help set the tone of a comic's story.
Expressive words in stickers help younger users tell simple stories with action.
Students can share comic pages via social media, or print them out.

Pros: Oodles of customization options empower kids to play with color, font size, stickers, words, and more.

Cons: Kids may not discover all options or may get overwhelmed by them; a video tutorial or in-app prompts would help.

Bottom Line: Strip Designer is a versatile media-creation tool that can support a range of learning goals for any subject of interest.

How Can I Teach with This Tool?

Teachers who have reluctant writers in their classrooms may especially love Strip Designer, which allows kids to endlessly experiment with visual elements and just a little (or, if desired, a lot of) written text. Kids could use this in class to interpret a required reading assignment, to document a field trip, or to create an original story.  Teachers may want to assign one page per group to help kids collaborate on a class-wide project. For younger students learning about onomatopoeia, teachers may want to use Strip Designer's stickers and caption bubbles ("POW!" and "WOW!") to bring sounds to the images.

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Standards:

Strip Designer lets kids use their photos and drawings to design comic-strip-style story pages in a visually creative way and share them with others. If you have students who aren't into traditional storytelling or who have trouble writing in expressive language, Strip Designer may be just what the writing coach ordered to get them excited about storytelling.

You get more than 10 strip templates, balloon-style captions, and 150 flippable stickers, as well as many fonts and colors for drawing on the photos (or drawing a standalone picture) and adding text. Students can produce comic strips -- focusing on fictional topics, or real-life topics with photos of themselves -- to share with others via social networks or to print a book. Students simply tap "new" on the main screen to create a comic page. Then they start compiling photos, words, drawings, and stickers.

There's no end to the visually cool, attention-grabbing stories kids can tell using Strip Designer. With a little work and a lot of imagination, a few pictures, stickers, and a text bubble or two, this app may be worth 1,000 words. The option icons are relatively self-explanatory, but tweaking the size and spots of the photos, frames, text bubbles, and more may still be frustrating for new or younger users, decreasing engagement. There's a basic tutorial and FAQ under the app's Help tab, but a video tutorial would be nice. Each page saves on a main My Comics page, and it's as easy as tapping Share to send a comic page via email, Facebook, Twitter, or via a PDF file and more.

Overall Rating
Engagement Is the product stimulating, entertaining, and engrossing? Will kids want to return?

Most kids love retelling personal events and seeing themselves in pictures. The comic-book-style format of Strip Designer makes these experiences all the more engaging.

Pedagogy Is learning content seamlessly baked-in, and do kids build conceptual understanding? Is the product adaptable and empowering? Will skills transfer?

Kids learn how to create their own comic-book pages by selecting the story they want to tell, the photos they want to use, and the design of each page. They can also collaborate with others.

Support Does the product take into account learners of varying abilities, skill levels, and learning styles? Does it address both struggling and advanced students?

The Getting Started tutorial takes users step by step through the process, but with many examples. It doesn't display a completed page at the end of instruction. A video tutorial would be a great addition.

Common Sense Reviewer
Dana Villamagna Classroom teacher
About our ratings and privacy evaluation.

Key Standards Supported

Writing

  • W.4.5

    With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing.

  • W.4.6

    With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of one page in a single sitting.

  • W.4.3

    Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.

  • W.5.5

    With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.

  • W.5.6

    With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of two pages in a single sitting.

  • W.5.3

    Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.

  • W.6.5

    With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.

  • W.6.6

    Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of three pages in a single sitting.

  • W.6.3

    Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.

  • W.7.6

    Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and link to and cite sources as well as to interact and collaborate with others, including linking to and citing sources.

  • W.7.3

    Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.

  • W.8.6

    Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and present the relationships between information and ideas efficiently as well as to interact and collaborate with others.

  • W.8.3

    Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.

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