Chances are, if you’re searching for the best free vector software, you want to learn about vector graphics. Inkscape, or Vector editing software free, is a great tool especially when it comes to creating graphics for the web. I will show you how easy it is to create icons and illustrations with this powerful open source software. You will learn tips and tricks on how to use quality design software that comes with an open license and can be downloaded free of charge.
In this post, I will share with you the best free vector graphic software.
Adobe InDesign
Video Courtesy of Yes I’m a Designer on YouTube
InDesign is a cross-platform solution that remains an industry leader in desktop publishing, maintaining its reputation as one of the best programs to create layouts for any kind of print and dig as well as interactive documents like PDFs.
InDesign released some cool new updates in 2021 such as “content-aware wrap,” which wraps text intuitively in context to image details, refined share for review options, and HSB color swatches.
Best features
- Map optical size to font size
- Seamless, interactive content reviews
- Highly intelligent text wrap and subject detection
- Liquid content- create multiple page sizes and orientations to accommodate viewing on any device.
- Master Pages- saves time by apply consistent elements throughout many pages
- Split window- compare different layouts of the same document
Pro: It’s best on the market, industry standard
Con: The ultimate con of Adobe products- it’s expensive + no live collaboration tools as of yet.
Experience level: Professional, with a steep learning curve for beginners
Pricing:
- $24.14/mo. for the single app
- $34.49/mo. for Creative Cloud all app access
- 7-day free trial
Experience level: Professional, with a steep learning curve for beginners.
Compatibility: macOS, Windows, iPad
Lucidpress
Video Courtesy of Lucidpress on YouTube.
Lucidpress is a web-based design and brand templating tool that makes creating on-brand collateral super easy. This software is mainly targeted at non-designers, empowering them to create on-brand print and digital media items with simplicity and speed.
Lucidpress is nowhere near a feature-rich professional tool such as InDesign. This is desktop publishing design at its most basic, yet highly effective, particularly for turning anyone into a brand and marketing conscious generator of designs, with an easy-to-use interface and plenty of template guidance.
Best features
- It’s super collaborative, offering features like team management, real-time collaboration, and a centralized hub for asset management
- “Template locking” allows you to “lock” branded elements in your designs that should not be changed, in order to maintain brand consistency
- Drag and drop editor for quick and easy creation
- Hundreds of pre-designed templates for social media, business cards, flyers, and more.
- Multi-channel distribution that allows you to easily share and save files anywhere.
Pro: It’s easy to use!
Con: quite a few limitations on the free version
Pricing:
- Free version
- $10/ mo. pro version
- $12/ mo. team version
Experience level: Total beginner through to professionals who want to save time
Compatibility: macOS, Windows, Linux
Quark Express
Video Courtesy of Quark Express TV on YouTube
Launched in 1987, QuarkXpress was a pioneering brand in the design software marketplace. Many designers and publishing houses used it back in the ’90s before InDesign was even around and still rely on it today. QuarkXpress is a close competitor to InDesign, offering many of the same features plus more.
This feature-rich all-in-one graphics software tool offers everything you need to create precise, professional, beautiful layouts and digital media designs, as well as mobile apps, PLUS illustration design, and photo editing tools.
Best features
- Mobile App publication- create print-design-inspired mobile apps for iOS and Android.
- Convert and access Adobe InDesign files in 3 easy steps
- Flex layouts- allow graphic designers to easily create responsive web design without coding knowledge, such as banner ads, landing pages, etc.
- Illustration tools for creating perfect vector graphics and illustrations
- Ready-made templates for speedy and productive design creation.
Pro: It’s a well-established pioneer in the field, solid professional software
Con: It has been overtaken by InDesign and is no longer the industry standard
Pricing:
- $474 one-time payment per user
- 7-day free trial
Experience level: Professional, fairly steep learning curve that can be tackled with the right learning materials.
Compatibility: Desktop- macOS and Windows 8.1 and 10; 64-bit only
Affinity Designer
Affinity Designer will be an attractive and affordable alternative for many designers who don’t need the vast – and expensive – array of features offered by Adobe Illustrator. which is especially suitable for someone who is in the early stage of design career. The software is known to work smoothly, which can improve your workflow and make you express your creativity more freely. You can move and zoom your artwork at 60fps; see the gradients, effects, and adjustments changing live along with the transforms and curve edits.
Specifically aimed at professional designers and how they work, this software can handle a very wide scope of design tasks, including web, branding, concept art, typography and even repeating patterns, as you might need on ceramics, wallpaper or soft furnishings.
Affinity Designer lets you work on both vector and raster workspaces, and you can switch between them easily. This software can work on any device, and you can create unlimited artboards within it. Advanced color controls are provided where you can work in RGB , CMYK, Greyscale , or LAB color spaces with up to 32-bits per channel.
You can find a wide range of toolset in the program which can be used to achieve a high level of accuracy and productivity. The grids and guides are fully customizable, where you can change the spacing, sub-divisions, gutters, angles, etc. Another powerful feature of Affinity designer is that you get floating-point accuracy by zooming your artwork, even by more than a million per cent.
Compatible with macOS and Windows. Affinity designer provides a graphic design app for the iPad with the same features offered on the desktop versions.
Inkscape
Inkscape seems to be the most popular free software ideal for vector art lovers and graphic designers who use SVG file format . As a GPL licensed app ( same with GIMP ) , along with Windows, Linux and Apple Mac versions, you can also download the source code and compile it for whatever version of Linux you use.
It’s a vector design tool that offers broad file support, extensive text manipulation and both Bezier and Spiro curve types. It also has an extension model that allows new features to be easily installed, and there are some amazing ones available ( more developed drawing and path tools. ).
It doesn’t matter whether you are a professional or just a person who wants to create vector images for a personal blog. In terms of sketching, coloring or making illustrations Inkscape is very easy to use. With the Ghostscript extension .eps files are easily readable. You can check difference between Inkscape vs Illustrator. Inkscape also comes with awesome features like: Ability to directly edit the source code; Keys to move screen pixels; Edit clones on the canvas; Edit gradients; Fill paint-bucket with one click.
This highly capable editor has a very good SVG integration, supporting many of the more advanced features that aren’t always available in other apps – such as alpha blending, cloned objects and markers.
Full support for different colour modes means this is a viable alternative to Illustrator for both print and web design, and although the interface is somewhat simpler than Illustrator, it’s still possible to achieve extremely sophisticated artwork. Of particular note is the ability to trace bitmap images, support for variable width strokes and native import of Illustrator files.
Inkscape provides a lot of filters and a helpful community for the designer to grow. It is fairly easy yo use and has a good community if you need some help. I have found I have been able to accomplish everything in Inkscape that I used to do in Adobe Illustrator .
The only reservations I have is that even on a powerful PC it can be slow at times when a complicated process involves rendering. also you should notice that Free software graphics tools such as Inkscape and Gimp don’t support CMYK color or have very limited support .
Gravit Designer
Gravit Designer is a full-featured vector design app from the company behind Corel Draw. Which is another free graphic design software that can be used to create vector-based designs. You can create logos, edit photos, and create illustrations and animations in this program. Gravit does not have an offline version in the free plan. The software is fully customizable according to the user’s needs. The pro version of Gravit is paid and has more advanced features like advanced export options, offline version, more color space, etc.
Gravit Designer online version is an HTML-based graphic design application to deliver high-quality vector graphics.
Dashboard: The dashboard is easy to navigate and allows to switch between the tabs or switch dark themes instantly easily. Users can also easily set the width and height of the document through the dashboard.
Pages: Its pages feature a perfect blend of artboards and pages that comes with its canvas settings.
Tools and Effects: It offers several tools, including the Bezigon tool, Lasso tools, and Pen tool, among others. It also allows adding multiple fills to an element.
Portability: It offers absolute cross-platform portability for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS to enable the designer to work from any machine efficiently.
It offers a modern user interface that is entirely customizable, engaging, and easy to use.
Gravit Designer offers an implicit way to design social media posts for various platforms, including Instagram and Facebook.
It offers natural flexibility through web and desktop versions of the software.
It supports multiple file formats for export as well as import.
It allows editing of scalable vector graphics.
Users get knife and tool support for non-destructive Boolean that makes it a potent tool for user interface design
Designers can easily open multiple documents and go to the papers on the tab.
Its Pro version offers unlimited cloud storage.
Cons:
There is not a lot of information present about the software from official resources.
A real-time collaboration feature is absent.
Designers can’t run prototypes on smartphones to find out how would they look.
Fonts need an active internet connection to work.
Conclusion
Once you’ve decided on a software, take some time to learn the basics so that you can become a master in no time. There is a great deal of advanced features which are not common, but once mastered they can turn into an asset to your workflow.