Free Apps To Create Graphics For Studies, Business Reports, And More. That’s right graphic layouts are not only for the geeks – rather for smart businessmen who know how powerful impact can be delivered through great combination of shapes and styles. This is not exclusive for development field however these also come handy to many other people like Accountants, Financial Advisers, Bloggers, Freelancers and more. While there are several available programs you can get online for free; it is still worth the mention because all of them are good in their own ways. However not all of them can provide similar features.
In this article, I’ll be showing you how to create graphics using free apps for Windows 10. So, if you’re looking for ways to enhance your blog posts with high quality graphics, then this list of 7 app is for you.
Canva (Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows)
Canva is a powerful, but still simple to use, template-based graphics design app. There are hundreds of thousands of templates, graphics, and photos you can use as part of the free plan (that goes up to millions of assets with a Canva Pro subscription).
When you open Canva, you’re presented with dozens of possible templates for everything from posters to Instagram Posts. It’s a lot to navigate, but there’s great search built in. Just click the search bar in the top right of the screen and look for something like “birthday instagram stories” to see more specific options. (I got 160 suggested templates just for that.)
Once you’ve found a template to work from, the drag-and-drop editor makes it simple to add your own resources. Just click Uploads then Upload Media in the left sidebar, add any images or brand elements, and you can drop them straight into the editor. One tip: right-click on any element and click Send Back or Send Forward if you want to move it behind things like the text (which you can double-click on to edit) or the image frame.
Like Google Docs, Canva enables you to share and collaborate with others, so if you want a second set of eyes on your design, click the Share button in the toolbar and then add an email address.
When you’re done, click Download to save your post for, well, posting. If you’ve accidentally included any premium assets, you’ll have the option to pay to remove their watermarks (normally at about $1 per asset). It’s a handy option if you only occasionally use Canva. If this happens a lot, you can subscribe to Canva Pro for $12.95/month (or at least check out the 30-day free trial). Pro has heaps of extra designs, and some nice features, like automatic resizing, a social media scheduler, and the ability to upload your “brand kit,” so you can easily add your logo, brand colors, and font to your designs.
Canva Price: Free for 250,000+ templates and 5GB storage; from $12.95/month for Canva Pro, which offers unlimited storage, millions of assets, and more.
Pablo by Buffer (Web)
Pablo is a minimalist tool for placing text over the top of images from the team behind the social media scheduling app Buffer. It couldn’t be simpler to use or in its design. To us, that’s a feature—but if you need something with more options, check out one of the other great apps on this list.
Seriously, Pablo is barebones. Open the website and you’re straight into the app. There’s no need to create an account—because there are no accounts. In the center of the screen, there’s a preview of your image. On the left, you can search for an image through Unsplash or click Upload Image to add your own. At the top of the screen, click Templates to choose from one of the six defaults. On the right, you can choose the size and shape of the canvas, add a filter, position the text, and insert your logo or another graphic. Click on the text to change its formatting, double-click on it to edit it directly. Oh, and click Reposition to change the position and crop of the background image. That’s literally it.
Once you’re happy with your post pic (and it won’t take long for you to be), click Share & Download to save your image or post it directly to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram (or queue it up with Buffer). If you do queue it up with Buffer, you can also connect it to any of the other apps you use with Zapier.
For all the lack of options, Pablo is still on this list. It makes it beyond simple to create basic-but-good-looking social media images. Honestly, by stripping most features, it just makes it impossible to create ugly graphics.
Pablo Price: Free
Snappa (Web)
Of all the apps on this list, Snappa is the only one whose free plan has access to the exact same templates, graphics, images, and other design resources as the paid plan. The catch is that, instead of having to carefully check what template you’re using, you can only download three designs a month.
If you only occasionally need to create images for your social media channels—or just want to create a one-off banner for your Twitter account or Facebook page—it’s really nice to not constantly be running into upgrade notifications. As good as Canva and Spark are, the free plans do make you very aware that there’s a paid plan they’d love you to be on. Snappa is a lot less pushy—but no less useful.
The other mild difference with Snappa is that its templates—while excellent—aren’t as thoroughly themed as some of the other options. (Right now, just before Christmas, there are only three generic holiday-season Instagram post templates.) You need to look at the defaults as a base you can customize and build from, rather than something ready-built that you’re just adding a photo and changing the words with.
If you want to make a birthday post, for example, you should look at the templates and pick one that has a layout you like. Then, open it and add your own picture with the Bkgrnd tool in the sidebar—either by uploading one or finding one of the included royalty-free stock images that works for you. You can customize it further by clicking on Effects and adding a color overlay, blur, or other adjustment—most of which serve to make any text on top of the image more legible.
Of course, you then need to add balloons. Because every birthday post has balloons. To do that, click the Graphics tool and then Icons. Use the search to find a balloon you like, and click to add it. To make sure everything lines up nicely, you can click the Toggle Grid option in the top toolbar and use it to position things perfectly.
When you’re happy with how things look, click Download to save your image or Share to push it directly to your social media accounts—so long as you haven’t maxed out your free posts. If you have, you’ll need to upgrade or click Save to keep the file until the monthly limit resets.
Snappa Price: Free for 3 downloads or shares per month; from $15/month for unlimited downloads, shares, and integration with Buffer and your social media accounts.
Genially
The best graphic design software for data visualisation
SPECIFICATIONS
Platform: BrowserTODAY’S BEST DEALSVISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Versatile datavis tools+Easy to use+Lots of sharing options
REASONS TO AVOID
-Free version adds watermarksAdvertisement
For the best graphic design software for data visualisation, take a look at Genially. It’s built for creating everything from infographics through to quizzes and presentations, and enables you to make engaging, visually-appealing and delightfully shareable content quickly and easily.
There’s a free version of Genially that lets you start creating with plenty of free templates and resources. However, if you want advanced features such as offline viewing and the option to remove the Genially watermark from your creations, you’ll want to check out the paid plans starting at €7.49/month.
Blender
The best free graphic design software for 3D work
SPECIFICATIONS
Platform: Windows, macOS, LinuxTODAY’S BEST DEALS
US$249.95View at AmazonUS$259.95View at AmazonSee all prices (6 found)
REASONS TO BUY
+Full 3D creation suite+Free and open source+Regular updates
REASONS TO AVOID
-Learning curveAdvertisement
For the best free graphic design software for 3D, there’s only one serious choice. Blender is a full 3D content creation suite with a hugely impressive stack of tools. Its makers are constantly working on its development, but you can pretty much do anything 3D related with this software, including modelling, texturing, animation, rendering and compositing.
Infinite Design
Created by developer Sean Brakefield, Infinite Design is a vector graphics apps for Android that lets you create designs using your tablet or smartphone.
If you want to try before you buy, the free version includes an infinite canvas, infinite layers and an infinite undo and redo system (hence the name), layer options such as split, merge, flip and duplicate and five symmetry tools, the ability to import images to the canvas and add special effects and a path editing and pen tool for precise control.
Without paying for the full version, you’ll be able to save your work as a JPEG, but the full version will give you the ability to save images as PNG, PSD or SVG, and is ad-free.
Conclusion
I’ve gathered some amazing, high quality apps that will help you learn how to create graphics. I’ve used the majority of these software programs myself so I can promise you that these are not only the best free graphic design software programs but that they are easy to use as well.