Unconventional Graphic Design and Text Art Tools for Modern Creators
I have curated a diverse collection of unconventional graphic design and text art tools spanning classic ANSI, ASCII, and modern Unicode formats. This list features specialized editors like PabloDraw, RexPaint, and monodraw, alongside experimental projects for vector tiles and procedural graphics. Whether you are a power user seeking terminal-based editors or a beginner exploring creative coding with Scrollart, these resources offer unique ways to craft digital art using text and grid-based systems.
Textual Paint is a textmode version of MS Paint that runs in the terminal.
- california-og
This is my list, thanks for sharing!
It started out as a list for ASCII and textmode art editors but grew to include all kinds of alternative design tools. I've hosted two workshops where the assigment is to create a printed zine without the use of any Adobe software. I give this list to the participants to explore. The scans of these zines and more info can be found here:
https://tekstien-marginaalien-keskus.aalto.fi/residenssi/hei...
https://tekstien-marginaalien-keskus.aalto.fi/residenssi/hei...
I think its crazy that my University (Aalto) pays over a million euros in licencing fees to Adobe every year while the design teachers are chronically overworked and understaffed. My ultimate goal is to persuade the institution to ditch Adobe and switch to FOSS tools, and hire more staff & teachers.
- california-og
Slanted magazine did an issue recently on digital tools and compiled their own list:
https://www.slanted.de/news/digital-tools/
The issue has screenshots of many of them:
https://www.slanted.de/product/slanted-magazine-47-digital-t...
- WillAdams
Made me instantly think of Glenn Reid's nifty "TouchType.app" for the NeXT, which I still really miss --- these days I just convert to paths and use Macromedia Freehand/MX (or a proprietary tool for the CNC machine I support on the side).