Best laptop for illustrators | Standard Evening

Whether you’re starting your academic path with illustration, looking for your next daily driver as a working professional or just want to pursue a hobby, you’ve come to the right place. First, what makes a good laptop for illustration?

Traditional forms of illustration aren’t going anywhere, but ever-increasing technology and ever-changing client demands have made the PC a more versatile tool than pen and paper in a variety of situations. Molly Pukes is a professional illustrator and animator, whose work with channel 4 has won awards; they work with a variety of media, but much of the client’s work revolves around digital illustration.

“Storage is a given,” Molly said. “When working with illustrations, you use a lot of files. Often when I work on a project, I have several copies of the same file to give the client different options. These files can be added!” He added, “The majority of illustrators I know use the cloud, but when you’re working on a project and you need the file in front of you, you can’t waste time downloading and uploading it.”

As important as storage, it should not be the only criterion to remember. “Processing power is something that many people overlook when choosing a laptop to use. There’s no point in having a lot of storage if your laptop struggles to run the programs you need to access your files.

Molly also touched on the importance of visuals, not only in creating but in navigating creativity. “A visual interface is important. I don’t want a menu in a menu; I want the interface to be laid out visually. Some laptops have a special taskbar screen to navigate shortcuts, which can speed up the workflow. And on the screen: “if you spend a lot of days looking at the screen, it’s important to maintain eye health; it’s also important to get the color right.”

Perhaps the most important feature is the graphics processing power. Many laptops use an integrated graphics chip, but a separate GPU board is far more desirable for illustrators; it will be more powerful, and have more internal memory to handle high-intensity graphics tasks (including 3D Rendering). In general, processing power is key, so look for enough RAM and a good GPU.

Second: storage. Working on graphics can quickly fill up your hard drive, whether it’s from creating high-fidelity final images or collecting massive gigabytes of reference material – to say nothing of the space your own illustration software can take (looking at you, Adobe). Look for integrated SSD storage that allows quick access to files and applications.

Just like pen, pencil and paper, choosing the right laptop as an illustrator is a personal thing. Different features will speak to you, and different specifications will suit you depending on the specifics of your discipline. If some prefer the I/O plugging in their own graphics tablet, others may prefer to use the touchscreen on their own laptop – in this case, physical flexibility is key.

Next, it’s a broad view of the world of laptops for illustrators. Among the ten suggestions below, you’ll find inexpensive entry-level notebooks, top-dollar ultra-spec rendering machines, and everything in between.