Graphic designing is the art of creating stunning and attractive graphics for your brand, commercials, posters, advertisements, etc. Graphics make a long-lasting impression on visitors. But it isn’t easy to attract customers with irrelevant and low-quality visuals — this where good graphic design software comes in.
Graphic design tools can improve your designing skills. You don’t need to invest a massive amount in premium graphic designing tools. There are many free options available that can help you in your freelance career and enhance your creativity.
This guide will give you a review of the 5 best free design tools recommended by top freelancers and graphic designers.
Canva
Canva is a complete all-in-one and free design tool for anyone who has no prior experience in graphic design. As a freelancer or blogger, you always need extraordinary designs in minutes; Canva can help you with that. It has an easy-to-use and user-friendly format, having a drag and drops functionality. With Canva, you get access to eighty thousand pre-designed customizable templates.
Besides that, Canva helps you collaborate with your team members. They can review, edit or comment on the design. Canva has been able to compete with industry giants like Adobe’s Indesign, Figma, etc. at some good levels.
| Pros | Cons |
· Canva offers a simple and easy-to-use interface. · You can create stunning graphic designs of several types, including logos, Facebook posts, Instagram posts, videos, infographics, etc. · You get access to 80,000 pre-designed customizable templates. · It offers thousands of free stock images in its premium plan. · The free version remains free forever. · You can share or schedule your designs on social media platforms. | · Basic graphic designing features like alpha transparency are not available in the free plan. · Resizing of design functionality isn’t available in the free plan. ·There is a functional inconsistency between the mobile app and web version. · Using Canva while having a small screen can be difficult. |
PicMonkey
PicMonkey is an online designing and photo editing tool. You can take it as an easy-to-use Photoshop alternative. It is primarily a photo editing tool. That’s why the design templates offered by PicMonkey are less than its competitors.
But you can perform all actions related to photo editing for free. It supports minimal but useful integrations such as Google Drive, Google Photos, Buffer, and almost all social media platforms.
| Pros | Cons |
· You get access to so many filters and effects that make your photos stunning. · It allows you to use each photo editing feature for free. · PicMonkey has an intuitive drag and drop editor. · PicMonkey also offers touchup tools like airbrushing, eye color changer, blemish fixer. · You get access to many design templates for wedding invitations, thank you cards, business cards, etc. | · You can only have 1GB of storage in the free plan. · It has limited customization. |
Crello
Crello is an online graphic design tool with over 12 thousand static and almost three thousand animated designs. You also get a large variety of objects, shapes, effects, fonts, and backgrounds.
It also allows you to download animated videos that you can use for creating social media posts, animated ads, YouTube intros, and outros, etc. Besides that, this tool has built-in photo editing tools such as Crop, Blur, Filters, Layers, and Transparency. This tool for anyone who wants to create pro-looking images, having no relevant experience, and not familiar with professional graphic design software.
| Pros | Cons |
· You get full HD animations. ·      It has 12 thousand static and over 3 thousand animated templates. · You can create eBooks. · It allows you to upload your files and fonts. · With Crello, you can keep your projects in a separate folder for free. · Crello also offers a video library. · It comes with a forever free plan. | · It has no integration with sites having free stock images like Pexels, Pixabay, or Unsplash. · Crello offers no brand kit to save custom color plates. |
Piktochart
Nobody can deny the importance of infographics, and it allows people to quickly digest information by using visual data, maps, statistics, and charts. But not everyone has the ability and know-how to create them.
Piktochart allows you to create basic and useful infographics without using any powerful design software like InDesign. Pick a template from 400 pre-designed templates along with icons and graphics to get your message across.
| Pros | Cons |
· You get access to a library of over 200 infographic templates. · It has an excellent Remote collaboration feature. · You can easily import data from Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. · It has video embed capabilities. · It has a very easy-to-use and user-friendly interface | · You cannot access many intricate infographic templates in the free plan. · It has language limitations. Some languages are not supported by it. · Design guidelines are stringent. |
Pexels
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As a freelancer, sometimes you don’t have enough time to arrange a photo shoot to get the images you need. However, you still desire high-quality graphics that seem like an expert shot them. That’s where stock images come in.
Stock photos are those images taken by professional photographers who then allow their work to be used for many purposes. You can reuse or edit these images as they are royalty-free. Many websites provide high-quality free stock images, and the most popular of these sites is Pexels.
You don’t need an account to download pictures. However, for actions such as liking photos, collecting photographs, or following photographers, you will need an account.
The benefits of using Pexels are listed below:
- You get access to over 2 million high-quality free photos.
- You can use these photos for commercial projects.
- It allows you to browse through photos by their color.
- You can directly integrate thousands of high-quality images and videos into your product.
- Not just images, you can get thousands of free HD videos.
- You can earn a fair amount of money through donations.
Summary
Decide which features are essential, and you want them in your graphic design software. The software should effectively help you reach your business goals and elevate your business. Consider the above list of online graphic design tools to make the best choice for your graphic design-related tasks.
Each of the above tools is built for one common purpose, to help newbies and ill-experienced designers to create stunning and attractive visuals. Hopefully, you would now have an idea of all these tools.
So, which design tool would you go for? Let us know.
