Graphic design software free download can be a tricky thing to find. Graphic designers wouldn’t always be working on the latest and the greatest of graphic design software, often opting for free or cheaper alternatives like web-based graphic design software. With that in mind, here are some of the best alternatives to popular paid-for graphic design software.
Have you ever wondered if there are any free web based applications to help you with your graphic design projects? Or maybe you’re just interested in finding out more about free graphic design software available. Well, today we’re going to take a look at the best free web-based graphic design software and explore the world of free graphic design software download.
Krita:
Krita is a powerful vector graphics creator with a heavy focus on digital painting and illustration. It is mainly used to design comic books. It is free software with advanced templates and features.
Artists designed Krita for top-quality drawing software that is available to everyone. It can help design comic books, drawing such as smooth shapes, vanishing points, advanced selection functions, layer masks, etc. If you want to enter the illustration world, Krita is the best choice in the open-source category.
Adobe InDesign:
Adobe InDesign is a must-have software tool if you are in the business of publishing. It offers excellent capabilities to design stunning magazines, info sheets, and brochures while easily exporting them to PDF or HTML.
Key Features:
- Easy To Use: Unlike PhotShop, InDesign requires a low learning curve. That means new users can quickly learn how to combine text and graphics to achieve the best results.
- Adjust Layout: The ‘Adjust Layout’ feature empowers the designer just to change the text of the template, and design gets adjusted automatically, which is great for infographics.
- Sensei Technology: Adobe’s AI-powered Sensei technology ensures automatic resizing and arrangement of images.
- Adobe InCopy: Designers can leverage InCopy to work with other members of the team by sharing text, colors, and graphics.
Pros:
- Graphic designers can efficiently combine graphics and texts for easier streamlining and optimizations of files.
- It allows users to add tags to indexes, keywords, anchor text frames, footnotes, table of contents, and captions with hyperlinks.
- It supports HTML exporting that enables web developers to export clean and simple codes during the implementation of the website’s layout designs. This works great for WordPress sites.
- It can help you eliminate redundant div tags in HTML files along with insignificant content grouping.
- Has the capability of resizing multiple objects and change the width and height at the same time.
- Designers can leverage its Eyedropper tool to apply position or size instantly to another object within the document.
- It is an industry-standard for desktop publishing.
Cons:
- The less intuitive user interface can make things overwhelming for new users.
- Not positioned for general users. Suitable for enterprise use only.
- Relatively expensive than other similar software available in the market.
- PDF comment integration needs perfection
Pricing Plans:
Adobe offers InDesign at a monthly subscription of $20.99. The full Creative Cloud costs $52.99 per month.
Canva:
Best for: Social media graphics
Platforms: Mac, Windows, Android, iOS
Canva launched in 2013 and has since become a very popular online design and publishing tool. In fact, this is the software that Team Clark uses to create a lot of the graphics we post on social media!
Canva offers a free version that includes everything you’ll need to start designing. With it, you’ll get access to more than 250,000 free templates and more than 100 design types including social media posts, presentations, letters and more. You’ll also be able to use hundreds of thousands of free photos and graphics, collaborate on projects with members of your team and save your work with 5GB of free Cloud storage.
You can create a free account to begin using Canva online directly in your web browser. You can also download the desktop app for your Mac or Windows device. Canva also offers highly-rated apps on The App Store and Google Play for your iOS or Android device.
Vectr:
Best for: Collaborative projects
Platforms: Windows, Linux, Chrome OS, Web Browser
Vectr is a free graphics software that lets you create vector graphics using a simple platform. Vectr is available as a downloadable program, or you can use the software online in your web browser.
The website includes a variety of helpful tutorials ranging from how to get started to creating beautiful professional presentations. You can also use the software to create business cards, typographic logos, social media headers, memes, resumes and more. In addition to the tutorials, you can also check out Vectr’s user guide for a more comprehensive description of how to use the software.
Perhaps one of the best features that Vectr provides is real-time URL sharing. You can send anyone a Vectr document for real-time collaboration online. You can create and edit designs live from both the web app or the desktop version. This makes it a great tool for collaborating with others on projects.
Inkscape:
Best for: Professional quality vector graphics
Platforms: Linux, Windows, macOS
According to Inkscape’s website, the software was created for designers of all kinds including those in marketing and branding, engineering/CAD, web graphics, cartooning and for individual uses. You can get started by downloading the software to your Linux, Windows or macOS device.
When I first downloaded Inkscape, the interface reminded me of Microsoft Paint. This made it really intuitive to use, and all of the features are available for free. According to the website, those features include object creation, object manipulation, fill and stroke features, operations on paths, text support, rendering and a variety of file formats.
There are tons of resources available on Inkscape’s website under the “Learn” tab including an FAQ section, tutorials, books/manuals and a guide to how to use Inkscape for animation. Users also have access to Inkscape’s community which includes user support and discussions in the form of chat, forums and more.
SVG-Edit:
Best for: Basic online editing
Platforms: Any web browser
SVG-Edit is a web-based drawing editor that works in any modern web browser. The code to the program is completely open-source, which means you can download and edit the program’s code itself, embed it into your own website and more. Of course, even if you aren’t interested in coding, you can just visit this website to use the basic editor online for free.
As you can tell from the program’s title, the editor specializes in creating and editing scalable vector graphics (SVG) images. This is one of the most popular graphics formats. Still, you can export your finished images as PNG, JPEG, BPM, WEBP or PDF files as well.
SVG-Edit looks a lot like Microsoft Paint, and it’s great for similar simple tasks. You’ll find basic tools that allow you to create and edit images including a digital pencil, shape tools, text tools, a color picker and more. You can use the tools to create a basic graphic from scratch, or if you need to make simple edits to a graphic or image, SVG-Edit may be the best basic online editor. Of course, if you have a more complicated project, this editor may not be enough.
GIMP:
Best for: Free Photoshop alternative
Platforms: GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows
If you’re looking for a free alternative to Photoshop, GIMP is a graphic design software worth checking out. While you can’t use the software online, it can be downloaded to Linux, OS X or Windows computers.
GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It’s a free software that was designed for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring, according to the website. The interface is really similar to Adobe’s Photoshop, so if you’re already familiar with the tools and shortcuts, using GIMP will be easy.
You can get started by checking out the tutorials online which include beginner basics, photo editing tips, painting guides and more. If you’re ready to try out the software yourself.
Conclusion:
You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this. You see, there are a lot of graphic design software out there, and it can be hard to know which one to buy (or use). This is why it’s important to look at programs that are available for free .