Here’s a list of free online graphic design software, perfect for students and professionals alike. I’ve also included this list in the infographics section. If you’re looking to start a new project these are all great places to get started. With free, online graphic illustration software, there are no monthly fees to worry about, and no need to spend hundreds on software.
Graphic design is an art, and an art that requires software. All graphic designers need software and there are hundreds of free software options out there to choose from. It can be tough choosing the right one ; but here’s my helpful list of free graphic illustration software and tools to help you.
CorelDraw Graphics Suite
CorelDraw Graphics Suite packs some pro-level features and offers a highly accessible interface that is easy to use. It is a bundle of multiple applications that deliver powerful editing features.
Key Features:
- Content Exchange: It is Corel’s online digital library through which registered users can get access to thousands of high-resolution photographs and digital images. It also offers over 2000 vehicle templates, 1000 fonts, 350 professionally designed templates, more than 500 interactive frames, over 600 gradients, vector, and bitmap fills.
- Flexible Payment: Corel offers three payment programs through which users can buy the software along with nominal charges for regular upgrades. It also offers an upgrade program for existing users.
- Customizable UI: You get a customizable UI environment for the desktop, icon sizing, toolboxes, options for how your documents open, and window border color scheme. Users can also visit Corel’s developer community website to design macros that suit their workflow.
- New Pointilizer: Corel’s new pointilizer offers a lot of variable parameters that are not just limited to regular dots.
Pros:
- It offers app-wide workflow and under-the-hood innovation and performance enhancements to boost productivity
- Works perfectly without any lag with Surface Pen
- Users get the option to choose GPU acceleration over the default CPU while working with system-intensive sophisticated vector graphics
- Smooth transition from desktop to tablet mode to leverage touch features
- It offers better EPS and third-party PDF importing capabilities and leverages with their GPL Ghostscript feature
- It is capable of exporting files in up to 48 file types, including AutoCAD, JPG, PNG, SVG, AutoCAD, JPG, and TIFF. It can also open 35 file types, including EPS, HTML, AutoCAD, PDF, PowerPoint, SVG, and even old FreeHand files
Cons:
- Unlike Adobe, there are no complimentary mobile applications offered by Corel
- Two many payment options might confuse the user
- Not easy to operate for beginners
Pricing Plans:
CorelDraw is available for a 15-day free trial. Its full version is available for $474 with a 30-days money-back guarantee. You can also pay for an annual subscription for $198, or just $16.50/month.
Adobe Animate
Adobe Animate is a new and improved version of Adobe Flash Professional. The software lets you create interactive vector graphics and 2D animations for videos, ads, games, television and more. You can animate characters, avatars, shapes and other assets using timeline controls.
Features:
- Vector brushes with size, smoothness, pressure and velocity settings.
- Intuitive timeline controls with advanced animation settings.
- Virtual camera feature that lets you add pan, zoom and other effects.
- Synchronize audio with your animations and create audio loops.
- Typekit integration gives you access to premium web fonts.
- Export in Flash, HTML5 Canvas, WebGL, SVG and more.
Pricing: Starts from $20.99/month.
Pros: Extensive export and sharing options to publish your animations in virtually any format for any platform.
Cons: Just like any other Adobe software, Animate has a steep learning curve, especially for beginners.
Ideal for: Game designers, YouTubers, cartoon makers.
Adobe Character Animator
Adobe Character Animator is another one of Adobe’s animation software stack. But unlike Adobe Animate, Character Animator lets you use motion capture to create live animations of your 2D characters. For example, you can create a character in Illustrator or Photoshop, import it into Character Animator, set it up with tags and then animate it using your own facial movements using your webcam.
Features:
- Real-time motion capture and automatic facial tracking.
- Download characters from Creative Cloud Market.
- Integration with Photoshop and Illustrator.
- Move the character’s limbs with your mouse.
- Timeline panel for recording and editing scenes.
Pricing: Included in the Creative Cloud All-Apps Plan that costs $39.99/month.
Pros: Easy to replicate real-life movements and expressions with facial tracking. Plenty of import and export options.
Cons: This software is available as part of the all apps pack, not as a standalone product. Also, you need to have a webcam and microphone to use the motion capture feature.
Ideal for: Bloggers, marketers, entertainers, educators.
Maya
Initially established in 1998, Maya is an Academy Award-winning (2003) 3D computer graphics and animation software. Currently owned by Autodesk, it is especially useful for the creation of interactive 3D applications like motion pictures, video games, TV series, special effects, and more.
It is, without any doubt, one of the best software tools on the market providing 3D animation, and has been acclaimed for its use in notable films like ‘Lord of the Rings,’ ‘Spiderman,’ ‘Star Wars,’ and ‘Ice Age.’
The best part is that it is compatible with all operating systems including Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Best for:
Maya is one of the best animation software tools for creating animation pictures, video games, and adding 3D effects in motion pictures. If you require high-quality visual effects, then Maya has you covered.
Advanced Features:
- Clip matching feature
- Bifrost liquid creation feature that creates simulations of photorealistic movies
- Excellent Adobe character animator
- Allows deep adaptive liquid simulations
- In-built accelerated modeling workflows
- Paint effect feature that allows you to make 3D shapes by freehand drawing tools and drawing software
- Enhanced viewport 2.0 and DX11Shader rendering engine (blur refFlections, shader effects, imparting translucency)
- Free-form approach to 3D modeling that allows you to add as many layers as you want
- Arnold integration – this RenderView feature can be used to view scene changes in real-time
- Create your own scripts and plugins for better customization (in Maya-embedded Language or python scripting)
- Voice-o-matic provides lip-syncing technology, motion capture, and walk cycles
Pros:
- Complex hand-made animation tasks made extremely easy
- Efficient color management (useful Boolean operations on polygon geometry)
- Create realistic effects including explosions and cloth simulations
- Excellent rendering technology even for the most advanced projects
- Comes with a 30-day free trial and 30-day money-back guarantee which are great to take it for a test drive
Pricing:
Maya is easily the best 3D animation software on the market and comes in at a reasonable cost of $1,700/year (or pay $215/month). They also offer a 30-day free trial so you can test the software before making the purchase.
Maya is one of the best on the market and my #2 pick this year.
You can test out Maya for free with a 30-day free trial or purchase a yearly plan and save 34%.
Blender
Blender is an open-source video editing software that lets you have total control over your animations. The tool offers advanced command line and programming features for rendering, modeling and creating 3D animations. It works across different operating systems, so you can use it on Linux, Windows and Mac.
Features:
- Powerful rendering, modeling and sculpting tools.
- Advanced animation and rigging tools.
- Draw and edit in 3D mode.
- Video editing and VFX, including motion tracking, masking and compositing.
- Powerful and realistic simulation tools.
- Extensive Python API for scripting and customization.
- Customizable user interface, window layout and shortcuts.
Pricing: Free.
Pros: It doesn’t cost anything to use Blender. Also, advanced animation and rendering tools make it fit for both beginners and expert users.
Cons: Blender has a very steep learning curve as it’s packed with so many features. Beginners will be overwhelmed and might need to spend hours on tutorials before getting it right.
Ideal for: Animators, engineers, scientists, artists, students.
Crello
- 50k+ static and animated templates
- User-friendly interface
- Integrated media library of video and audio files
- Built-in drag-and-drop editor
- Features are limited for those with free accounts
Crello is free graphic design software for those willing to create unique visual content of all kinds. Don’t hesitate to use their numerous instruments for uploading extra illustrations, removing image backgrounds, resizing, adding animations, removing objects, changing fonts or colours, and more.
Luckily, Crello’s massive library of professional pre-designed templates allows creating impressive graphic materials fast and easy.
Krita
- Customizable User Interface
- Drawing Aid for Your Assistance
- Selection Mask Tool
- Resource Manager
Krita is a commendable free & open-source graphic designing software that provides professional visual designing tools to professional graphic designers. Krita supports all operating systems including Windows, Linux & macOS.
In short, this free graphic designing software is best for designing conceptual art, textures, illustrations & comics. It provides a customizable and interactive user interface for the ease of users. The resource manager helps to import brushes and textures to extend the tools list on Krita.
DesignWizard
- Easy to Create Customized Templates
- Large Database of Images
- 10,000 Free Templates
- User-friendly Interface
- Efficient & Effective for Designing
- Limited Options in Free Services
With 1.2 million image database, DesignWizard is also a free platform for graphic designing. Users can find 17,000 plus templates on DesignWizard from which freebies could access 10,000. In addition, beginners can also find curated designs to get inspiration for designing attractive and elegant designs. Free services of DesignWizard allow you to resize the designs and create custom colour palettes. Moreover, you can upload your fonts, pictures & logos on DesignWizard.
In the same token, this platform gives you the option to personalise your content by creating a folder for your favourites. Font Library & a massive amount of images are available on DesignWizard for the use of designers.
Paint 3D
- Realistic Textures
- 3D Doodle Tool is available
- Create 2D cutouts
- Simple to Use Application
- No Support for Multiple Layers
Paint 3D is a newer version of Microsoft Paint which is introduced with Windows 10. As evident from the name, it allows you to design 3D designs by using practical tools and features of Paint 3D. In addition, you can create and enhance 2D and 3D models easily without spending a lot of time learning this application. This application of Microsoft Windows can be considered as an excellent start to move towards the profession of graphic designing.
Conclusion:
Whether you’re a budding designer, blogging mum or freelance graphic artist, chances are that you could do with some software for your computers, tablets and mobiles. Recreating images from scratch or designing logos, packaging and even t-shirts can get tricky at the best of times – which is where online graphic design software can come in handy.