The software programs in this category are such a boon to graphic designers & illustrators and other graphic arts professionals who work with various vector graphics, they’ll wonder how they ever got by without them! If you’re looking for the best and most widely-used vector graphics software on the web today, then this freeware vector graphics software page is just right for you.
I know that free vector graphics software sounds like a good idea when you are starting in your career. However, it is not easy to find a good freeware vector graphics software. There are numerous vector drawing programs available which makes it hard to choose one. In this article, I will tell you what the best free vector graphics software projects.
CorelDRAW Suite
Deliberately marketing itself to Adobe users frustrated with the subscription-only model, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite has taken the wiser path and offers both a subscription option and a one-time purchase option. The one-time purchase price is quite steep at $615 and you won’t receive any feature updates, but your license will never expire. In order to stay current it may be cheaper to opt for the subscription, which is priced competitively with Illustrator at $18.25 per month (billed annually at a cost of $219). Included in the purchase price are a number of additional tools including Photo-Paint, Font Manager, Website Creator and more.
Since CorelDRAW is a perfect choice for the tablet-equipped digital artist, let’s first take a look at the new LiveSketch tool. While the name sort of feels like a copycat of Illustrators similarly-named tools, the way it functions is completely different. When drawing with a tablet in most vector programs, you can create vector shapes based on your pen strokes, but LiveSketch actually maps out your sketches and creates the idealized line segments from your repeated strokes. It’s actually fairly difficult to explain, so apologies if that wasn’t quite clear, but Corel has created a quick introductory video that shows off how it works better than words can.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so a video at 24 frames per second must be worth a novel, at the very least.
Strangely enough, there isn’t very much tutorial content available for CorelDRAW 2017, only for previous versions. This may be due to the fact that the core tools haven’t changed, but it still seems a bit odd to me. Fortunately, Corel has a fairly decent instructional guide with some tutorial content available on its website, although it would still be easier to learn if there were more sources.
Despite what you might think from the name, CorelDRAW isn’t just designed as a drawing tool for digital freehand artists. It can also work with more common vector shape tools, and uses the same standard point and path system to create and adjust any object.
It can also be used for typography and page layout tasks, but it doesn’t handle these quite as well as Illustrator does. The developers have made the inexplicable choice to set the default typographic settings such as line spacing and tracking to use percentages instead of points, which are the typographic standard unit. On the other hand, it is actually capable of creating multi-page documents, but if you’re really serious about typesetting for brochures and books you will be much better off using a program specifically designed for those tasks.
Corel has incorporated a number of additional features into the software that aren’t found in Illustrator, such as simple integration with the WhatTheFont service, which is a huge help whenever you’re trying to figure out what typeface was used in an image or logo. On the less helpful side, there is also a built-in store that offers a number of additional options for sale. I don’t mind a company trying to increase their profit margins by selling additional software packs, but Corel also sells new tools for the program at incredible prices under the guise of calling them ‘Extensions’. ‘Fit Objects to Path’ and ‘Convert All to Curves’ are useful tools, but charging $20 each for them seems a bit greedy when they really should just be included.
YouiDraw
YouiDraw is the open-source vector graphics software that provides a variety of customizable textured brushes to the users. This free vector drawing tool offers modern tools like a pencil for the plain line or sketchy and different color options.
With different color and border size, users can shape new text. This tool is easy to use, very convenient and simple online drawing tool. Its logo design includes lots of features like quick styles, freehand logo tools, graphic templates, and vector logo effects.
The typical users of this software are Startups, agencies, enterprises, and SMEs. It works on HTML5 canvas with Google Drive. Anywhere or anytime, you can access your work. You will find this tool a powerful vector graphic design solution on the web. In various environments, you can express your style and creativity. The software can be integrated with almost all web applications.
Highlights:
- Drawing- It serves as a powerful vector graphic design solution on the web. You can express your style and creativity with this feature.
- Logo Creator- It creates high-quality vector graphics, icons, website elements, HTML5 logos, and buttons.
- Painter- You can work with dozens of customizable brushes, paper textures that seem to be real.
- Template & Style – The different styles and templates graphics will help in improving work efficiency. You will enjoy gradient, simple, and artistic styles.
- Tools- To point edit mode, straight line and curve arc, you can use a pen, pencil, brush, and switch elements.
- Text and shapes- With text button, you can create a shape into canvas, rectangle, ellipse, convex, concave, gear, round-corner rectangle.
- Transform- You can change the size, scale, and position, rotate, skew for the desired shape or text.
- Shape combine- It holds five different combine mode: Union, Intersect, Exclude, divide, and subtract.
Gravit Designer
Gravit has a clean, clear and uncluttered interface that is quite easy to use.
Gravit is another free vector graphics program, but unlike Inkscape it’s not open source. Curiously, this seems to have spared it from the user experience issues that plague some free programs. It also has the unique distinction of being available for the widest set of operating systems, and it can even run in a web browser.
I ran into a minor issue when launching Gravit for the first time, as the Windows version requires installation from the Microsoft store, which I never use. It installed fine, but when I tried to run it, it told me that I didn’t have sufficient permissions to access it. I’m not sure if this is just because it’s the first Trusted App I have installed, but your mileage may vary.
While it’s vector drawing tools are fairly standard, they do offer an excellent degree of control and ease of use. The interface is clearly designed and responds automatically to the particular tool you’re using, which is a nice touch. It can’t respond to pressure information from a graphics tablet, and its typographic options don’t use standard units, but these are minor issues.
Gravit can open a few standard vector formats such as PDF, EPS and SVG, but it doesn’t support any of the proprietary Adobe formats, which may be deal breaker if you’re trying to work with any of those file types. Even with that issue I’m still quite impressed with how polished the program is overall, considering that it’s free. If you’re just interested in experimenting casually with vector graphics, Gravit may be a good fit for you.
Boxy SVG
Platforms: Web app, macOS, Linux, Chrome
Boxy SVG may not be a terribly complex app with a ton of tools and tweaks for you to make, but that’s its strength. It’s very simple to use and can be either downloaded as a desktop app or used through your browser.
You’ll find all the drawing tools you need to create elegant vector images using pens, shapes, curves and text. If you want to dig a bit deeper, there are also various options based around typography, geometry, masks, and (crucially) the option to export your SVGs in other formats.
With its sparing and non-overwhelming amount of options and UI elements, BoxySVG is a great lightweight tool if you want to get straight into making vectors with minimal messing around.
JumpStory
Key benefits of using JumpStory
Images – Search authentic & high-performing photos
Videos – Find inspiring and high-resolution videos
Illustrations – Search great illustrations & backgrounds
Vectors – Find flexible vectors for your project
Icons – Search for professional icons
Simple license – International standard license on all images
Unlimited – Search & use as much as you want
Image archive – Store the images you like and access them later
Daily updates – New sources are added daily
Background removal – Automatic background removal with one click
Image editor – Crop, resize, add text, adjust contrast etc.
Many formats – All common formats and free image converter.
Conclusion:
If you are into graphics design, then you know how important a program to create vector graphics is. Whether you are doing web design, creating logos and marketing materials or producing icons for your software applications – with a good drawing program you can achieve the best results. There is a great number of vector graphic designers available at the moment. But not all of them are suitable for beginners in this industry. If you are looking for the best freeware vector graphics software to start with, you should choose between these programs we have selected specially for you.