Have you ever wanted to try your hand at graphic design, but didn’t know where to start? Or perhaps you’ve tried designing before but weren’t satisfied with the results. Either way, it can be hard to figure out which tools and techniques will get the job done. But how do you even get started when there’s so much to learn about design?
In this posts, I will be sharing with you amazing design tools that can greatly influence your productivity as a graphic designer. So, lets ride!
Affinity
Best for affordable drawing
Most people consider Affinity to be the budget-friendly version of illustrator. It’s easy to see why. Like illustrator, there’s a lot of functionality to experiment with, like easy color swatching and a grid system so you can ensure you’re creating your designs at just the right scale. Affinity also shares Illustrator’s “snap” function to allow you to lock elements in place.
Key Features:
- Works anywhere: Affinity works with Mac, iPad, Windows, and other operating systems, so you can design wherever you like.
- Grid and snapping: Create a grid system to help you make the most of your angles and spacing or create a more intuitive layout. Snapping ensure you can lock products into position.
- Multiple environments: You can work in both pixel and vector art environments without having to jump between applications.
- Workflow tools: This is a product designed for productivity. You get access to a ton of features like saveable histories and keyboard shortcuts.
What we like:
- Lightweight speed: Unlike Illustrator, Affinity doesn’t take up a huge amount of space on your computer. You can pan and zoom at 60FPS, access live previews and enjoy features with smooth speed.
- Flexibility: Make designs as simple or complex as you like. The Affinity Designer has an engine that can genuinely handle hundreds of objects with no lag. The company advertises “thousands”, but we didn’t put that to the test.
- Live outlines and grids: It’s easy to create accurate designs when you can create live outlines and grids to suit you.
What we dislike:
- Some limitations on your exporting options for files (no AI)
- No artificial intelligence enhancements like with Illustrator
Pricing: A one-time fee of $49.99 is all you need to pay.
Adobe Photoshop
All-purpose software
- Meticulous graphic design
- Renders business quality images
- Video and animation layers editing capabilities
- Ability to transfer files between multiple programs
- Complicated interface for novice users
- High-quality graphics are difficult to render
Verdict:Adobe Photoshop is a premium web development software. With a wide array of options, it enables you to create and edit amazing website layouts. Since it works with images, it is possible to create meticulous graphics for your project. Photoshop features infinite color panel and gradient options, so you can make a unique web page. If you want a color scheme that perfectly matches your favorite image, use color palette generators.
Adobe Photoshop allows you to create a web design from scratch to express your distinctive vision. It is possible to attach images, draw boxes, move objects, crop the edges and modify your layout according to your taste.
Since Photoshop works with layers, it can considerably simplify your workflow. You can show or hide layers to organize your web design elementsefficiently. Adobe Photoshop is suitable for professional designs, so it may be difficult for beginners to master its features. Nevertheless, once you try it in action, you will be blown away with its exceptional capabilities.
- Check out how to get Photoshop free.
Adobe Illustrator
Best for vector
Adobe really knows what they’re doing when it comes to design. Adobe Illustrator is the go-to solution for illustration. If you’re creating a new logo for your website, or designing a website with a fun, informal feel, this is the product for you.
All of your drawings are 100% scalable to suit any size, too.
Key Features:
- Exceptional customization: Adobe Illustrator flexes to suit your needs. You can access preset layouts and keep all of your files in the cloud, so there’s no need to worry if you need to switch to a different device.
- AI innovation: Adobe has implemented intelligence into the Illustrator application, and we’re not just talking about intuitive in-panel editing. Adobe Sensei can automatically extract specific shades from a photo and bring them into your image.
- Versatility: As mentioned above, you can create images at literally any size here. We’re talking huge billboard-style illustrations, or tiny decorations for a smartphone app. The system is also compatible with various OS options.
- Creative cloud link: You can connect Illustrator with the other features of Adobe’s Creative Cloud to access features through Photoshop, and similar products. The full cloud gives you more stock templates to work with, and graphics to unlock.
What we like:
- Intuitive experience: Everything about Adobe Illustrator feels like it was built to make your life easier. You can create full patterns with a single click and use AI enhancements to transform your project. It’s slick and streamlined
- Cloud sharing: Like most Adobe products, Illustrator is all about collaboration, you can store your documents in the cloud, share them with your colleagues, and work on everything together.
- Customer support: Aside from giving you a great user experience with the interface, Adobe also ensures that you can get the most out of your service with guides and tutorials.
What we dislike:
- It’s a pretty chunky application that requires a lot of bandwidth
- Costs a lot more than some basic vector and illustration options
Pricing: Available at a price of $9.99 for personal use, or $33.99 for enterprise use. You can also get it as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud.Try Adobe Illustrator
openElement
Open-source
- User-oriented
- An extensive number of free templates
- Appealing GUI layout
- Ability to store files locally on a computer
- Requires Internet connection to start a new project
- Configurationissues
Verdict: openElement is one of the most popular free web design tools that lets you create attention-grabbing and high-quality websites. Editing of elements, HTML5 and CSS3 support, image optimization – this is only a glimpse of what this software can offer.
openElement is a user-friendly and lightweight software. Due to its simple interface, it allows you to create impressive designs without much effort. Being open-source and completely free, openElement gives you an extensive number of tools and templates for youto express your creative vision.1/3
Xara Designer Pro X
Best for web and print
Xara promises to be one of the world’s fastest graphic design software tools, and it does quite well in that regard. Whether you’re building advanced design elements like web pages, or you’re just editing components of your visual portfolio, Xara has you covered.
This product is also somewhat more intuitive than some of the other design products on the market because of its flexible layout and interface.
Features:
- Complete all-in-one platform: Xara aims to bring all of the design products you need together in one space to save you more time and money. You’ll have a suite of products for web graphics, photo editing, and illustrations in one place.
- Drag and drop: A drag and drop interface makes any kind of editing or creation super intuitive. It’s also much easier to leverage the direct-action tools which help you to speed through your projects, such as gradient filling, or transparency.
- Undo/Redo: You can roll back through your changes as often as you like and zoom in by 25,000% to see the most granular details of your designs.
- Collaboration: Like many pieces of leading graphic design software, you can collaborate on projects with your team through Xara’s cloud functionality.
- Text handling: Full word processing style control over all your text, perfect for online publications and website pages.
What we like:
- Straightforward web design: Designing online pages is quick and easy with page layout tools and text control that combines with drag-and-drop functionality. You’ll get projects done a lot faster with this tech.
- Cloud capabilities: The ability to upload your content to the cloud and share it with colleagues is a nice touch, particularly for hybrid teams.
- Tons of file formats: You can sync files with your Google Drive or Dropbox, as well as Adobe PSD, or export in a range of bitmap types and file formats.
- Convenient interface: You really can find everything you need in one environment, from blending for illustrations, to photo editing.
What we dislike:
- Not available outside of the Windows operating ststem
- Can be a bit exhausting in certain places. The masking feature feels clunky
Pricing: Lifetime license is available at $299.00. Additional version upgrades bringing latest features are available for an additional fee every few years.
Adobe XD
For graphic design icons
- Works with all types of artboards
- Plenty of tutorials
- Simple and unclutteredUI
- Prototyping tool
- Repeating objects feature doesn’t work properly
- Can’t design customized shapes
Verdict: Adobe XD is a perfect option for designing a graphical user interface (GUI). It allows you to create graphic design icons, prototypes basic shapes, wireframes and visual indicators. Also, it is possible to arrange widgets, create website mockups and screen designs for web pages or mobile applications.
Adobe XD is a powerful and easy-to-use tool that allows you to jump-start your web design experience, streamline your workflow and create a responsive website with a custom layout of multiple screen sizes.
- Learn how to get Adobe XD free.
Canva
Best for templates
What could be easier than building all of the graphics you need in a template format? Canva is a product built specifically for people with essentially no design knowledge at all. However, you can still create a huge selection of products here.
There are templates for social media, email marketing campaigns, events, and more. Plus, you’ll get access to a vast range of stock photos and graphic resources.
Key Features:
- Photo editing: Make simple changes to photos for your website, like adding effects or removing unwanted distortions. There are also filters for social media.
- Stock resources: Access extra creative content for your blogs, emails, and other marketing campaigns. There are millions of videos, photos, and templates available. A fraction of these resources are also free.
- Templates: Templates are one of the things that make Canva so appealing. With templates already pre-made for certain websites CMS environments or social media sites, you can’t go wrong with your designs.
- Drag-and-drop editor: The drag and drop editor is a breeze to use. You can work with videos, photos, elements, and templates in this environment. It’s quick and easy to access fonts and stickers, as well as visual effects and animations.
- Social scheduling: Schedule your posts to go live within your Canva account.
What we like:
- Simplicity: Canva is delightful to use. You can search for stock images and videos in seconds, drag and drop elements into place, and experiment with a huge range of filters and effects.
- Free plan: If you’re not sure how many visual assets you need yet, you can start with the free plan and work your way up.
- Versatile: You can create a lot of different kinds of graphics easily with Canva, including logos, Facebook posts, email marketing templates, and landing pages.
What we dislike:
- You don’t get the full control with Canva that you get with more advanced marketing tools. There aren’t as many layers as possible and advanced features to explore.
- Can be a little slow as a browser-based product.
Pricing: The free version supports up to 15 designs a month, with around 8,000 free templates. The pro version gives you access to hundreds of thousands of extra templates and resources for $99.99 per year.Try Canva
Conclusion
Canva’s drag and drop interface makes graphic design easy. Start by uploading your image, collage, or download the free stock photo. The Canva online design tool has everything you need to create awesome flyers, posters, business cards, Facebook covers, Instagram posts and much more.