Introduction
A picture is worth a thousand words. And great graphic design is invaluable.
Brand design and logos must endure in the public’s visual imagination. Ads, social media posts and promotional content have to cut through the oversaturated image landscape. To do this, you need the best graphic design software.
Whether you need the image photo editing tools to do photo manipulation, or you want great illustration and drawing tools, the graphics software choices are huge. You can always try out free graphic design software, or jump right into the top industry standards.
In this article we’ll break down the best graphic design software. First we’ll take you through what graphic design tools can be used for. Then we’ll explain the major types of graphics suites. Finally we do an in-depth comparison of the best graphic design software. We highlight the design elements, features, the ease-of-use, and prices.
1,473 Best Affinity Designer Free Brush Downloads from the Brusheezy community. Affinity Designer Free Brushes licensed under creative commons, open source, and more!
- For AFFINITY (Works in Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo 1.8.3 or newer for Mac, PC, and iPad) for CORELDRAW (Works in CorelDraw X3 (year 2006) or newer for Mac and PC) Q: Is this bundle a subscription? This bundle is a one time up-front price, with no future charges or subscription fees.
- Affinity Designer is a tool that allows you to work with vector or raster images. That means you can create logos that can be scaled for any use with the software. In this tutorial, you walk through all the steps to create a simple vector logo using tools in Affinity Designer. How to Create a Flat Vector Illustration in Affinity Designer.
- CorelDRAW delivers a collection of award-winning design applications that meet the needs of freelancers, small businesses and education customers across industries and the globe.
- Affinity Designer sells for $49.99, which is very inexpensive for a quality graphic design program. If you want to try it out before you buy, Serif offers a free 10-day trial of its desktop apps, accessible via Serif website. Illustration Tools. Affinity Designer is one of the best graphic design programs for illustration tools.
Graphic design software comparison chart (top 10)
Product | Best for | Pricing* | Website |
Adobe Photoshop | Professional photo editor | $20.99/month | |
Adobe Illustrator | Overall vector graphic design | $20.99/month | |
Canva | Easy | $12.99/month | |
Gimp | Free photo editor | Free | |
Inkscape | Free vector graphic tool | Free | |
Coreldraw | Beginners | $129.00 | |
Gravit designer | $49.00/year | ||
Affinity Designer | $49.00 | ||
Pixlr | $4.90/month | ||
Vectr (free) | Free |
*Starting price where applicable, not including free versions
What is graphic design software?
Graphic design software is for creating visual content or editing existing ones like photographs.
The best graphic design software all share some similarities in look and feel. The basic user interface is intuitive and uses drag-and-drop. It often has a central window and dashboards beside, beneath or above it. The window is like the canvas where you see the graphics that you are working on.
Graphic design tools
The dashboards are like the toolkits. They include color palettes and drawing tools like pens, paintbrushes, paint buckets or spray paint cans. Here you also get tools for things like rotating, resizing, and cropping. There is also pattern matching, filters and typography. To manipulate these tools you can use a mouse, a pen tool or digital stylus, or even with a touch screen for some apps.
Graphic software also helps manage the file formatting of your visual media. While many design files work on SVG files (scalable vector graphics), the best graphic design software can handle many file formats. These include the basics like JPG, TIF, PNG, and GIF, but also formats like PDF for your WordPress site.
Graphic design uses
Graphic design software is used for everything virtual as well as physical. From web design to logos and ads, to print flyers, billboards and even merch like shirts and hats. Some graphics suites have templates for general things like business cards or pitch decks. Others have specific templates for things like Facebook Ads. Even video editing needs graphics for titles cards and other infographics.
Graphic designers can either work as independent designers, with design agencies, or in-house with a company. But today many people are deciding not to outsource to graphic designers. This is probably because of all the great graphic design tools out there, many with quick learning curves.
If you’re thinking of picking up graphic design, it’s good to know the basic kinds of graphic design tools.
What are the different types of graphic design tools?
So you’re shopping for the best graphic design software and are a bit overwhelmed by the choices?
To narrow them down you need to know what kind of graphic design you plan on doing. There are two major categories of graphic design. They are broadly illustrating and photo editing. In other words, you either create lines and shapes to form images from a blank canvas. Or you work with pre-existing images like photos sent from your iPhone or scanned old paper photographs.
The dominant graphic technologies for both categories are vector drawing and raster image editing (respectively).
Vector drawing
Vector drawing or vector illustration is a set of drawing tools. The technology is based around marking points on a cartesian 2d plane. From there you make lines and shapes. You can manipulate their size and color and countless other things.
Vector image editor tools have some great advantages. They scale up without degrading the image quality. This is because it is information about the relations between dots, lines and shapes. Vector graphic software has no trouble manipulating this information. It recreates vector images faithfully at whatever size.
This makes vector graphics perfect for print media and other material goods from labels to clothing. You can design a billboard on an iPad or Android tablet and see huge above a highway looking great.
Raster image editing
A photo editor is using different source materials. It is not an image created from information about 2D objects. Raster graphics is a dot matrix. Meaning the image is broken down into dots or pixels and each has its own color. Rats graphics are also called Bitmap.
You can change colors individually or in swathes. But it’s the size of each pixel that is less flexible than with vector graphics. For this reason, you cannot augment the size of a raster graphic without degrading the quality. It’s what we often call pixelated, like when we see a zoom in too much on a digital image.
You need raster image editing software especially when working with non-digital images as your source. Also, most computer displays are raster images. Finally, most completed graphic designs are saved in raster graphic formats like GIF, JPEG, and PNG.
There are some graphic design apps that do both. Other times you have sister apps like Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. Then you have apps that focus on just one or the other. Of course the best graphic design suites have loads of more complex tools and new features.
What is the best graphic design software? Here’s our top 10 list:
Here’s a breakdown comparison of some of the best graphic design tools. It covers graphic design apps that go from easy and cheap to top professional stuff. We dig into the variety of graphic design tools. Then we briefly discuss price and if there are free trials.
Photoshop (most professional graphic design photo editor)
Adobe Photoshop is the biggest name in photo editing software. It was first launched in 1988 and still undergoes constant updates. Today you can use Photoshop on Mac and Windows desktop as well as on the iPad.
Photoshop is a raster or bitmap image editing tool. This makes it easy to zoom in and edit fine details. There are photo manipulation tools that allow you to repair or edit digital images. Most of these work with simple drag and drop. Aside from being a photo editor, Adobe Photoshop has some basic drawing features. Otherwise you can use Photoshop along with other Adobe products from the Creative Cloud, like Adobe Lightroom or desktop publishing tool Adobe InDesign.
There are free trials of Adobe Photoshop. Otherwise it goes for $20.99 per month for Photoshop alone, and $52.99 for a Creative Cloud bundle of more than 20 Adobe apps. There are also many great plugins for Photoshop and other Adobe products.
Photoshop is best for:
Startups
SMBs
Large businesses
Image editing
Photo retouching
Web design
Illustrator (best overall vector graphic design tool )
Adobe Illustrator is another huge tool for graphic designers. Like Photoshop it was also first released in the late 80s. Since then it has had over 20 new generations. It can also be used on Mac, Windows or iPad.
While Photoshop was a raster photo editor, Adobe Illustrator uses vector graphics. A simple sidebar lets you choose your drawing or painting tools. Pencil tools let you draw freehand. You can also cut, move, reshape and resize images. Illustrator also has text features with great typography choices. Real-time rendering lets you preview your designs with little fuss. Since this is vector graphics, your images can be scaled up and printed with no loss of quality. Illustrator works alongside other Adobe desktop publishing tools like Adobe InDesign.
Adobe Illustrator costs $20.99 per month with an annual contract. You can also buy the Creative Cloud bundle of apps including Illustrator for $52.99
Illustrator is best for:
Startups
Small businesses
Large businesses
Design tools
Web design
Infographics
Canva (easiest graphic design tool)
Canva is a graphic design software from Australia. The free online version is very popular because it is intuitive and free. This is a good tool for making social media graphics.
Canva is best used with their templates. These include important ones for social media like Facebook Posts and Instagram Stories. There are other useful templates for things like flyers, presentations, logos and posters. Everything works through drag-and-drop functionality. You can also add text with many fonts to choose from. Canva also offers print services. You can get your design printed and delivered on anything from business cards to shirts. Canva is also good for charts for reports. It also has a photo library. Canva can be added to Google Chrome as a plugin.
There is a free version of Canva. Premium versions start at $12.99 per user per month billed annually. These plans get you more templates and a larger photo library.
Canva is best for:
Individuals
Startups
Home business
Vector illustration
Facebook ads
Instagram Stories
Icons and logos
GIMP (best free photo editor)
GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. GNU is a free collaboration project and GIMP is their free and open-source graphic editor. It first came out in 1996. Today it works on Linux, Windows and macOS.
Gimp uses raster image design tools. It’s good for doing image resizing, retouching and restoring. There are free-from drawing features. There is high-fidelity color management which makes for quality printing. You can select colors based on RGB or CMYK. Another benefit of GIMP is the cross-platform functionality. You can import and export images in BMP, JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF and HEIF.
You can download the latest version of GIMP for free. Many people believe that it is as good as Photoshop. One issue is that there is a bit of a longer learning curve with GIMP.
GIMP is best for:
Individuals
Startups
Small businesses
Raster image editor
Free forms drawing
Icons and logos
Image rendering
Inkscape (best free vector graphic tool)
Inkscape is a set of vector graphics design tools that is free and open source. It runs on Linux, macOS and Windows. It’s source codes are hosted on Gitlab.
With Inkscape you create vector objects and manipulate them. There are drawing tools that are freehand as well as for simple paths, lines and curves. You can move, scale, rotate and skew images. You can fill in shapes with patterns that are vector and raster. Other raster tools include bitmap tracing. Inkscape has basic text tools which use installed fonts. The editing format is mainly SVG but you can import other formats too. There is also an InkScape editor which can be added to Google Chrome.
You can download Inkscape for free from their website.
Inkscape is best for:
Individuals
Startups
Small businesses
Vector graphics editor
Bitmap tracing
Icons and logos
CorelDRAW (best graphic design tool for beginners)
Corel as a software company has been around since the mid-80s. They were sort of the incumbent to the then rising Illustrator. The main graphic design software product is CorelDRAW.
CorelDRAW does vector graphic editing. There are basic tools for vector illustration. CorelDRAW has page layout options that are like templates. The typography tools are limited but still very striking. The file formats compatible with CorelDRAW are BMP, PNG, JPG, PDF and GIF. There are some basic photo editing tools too. When you use CorelDRAW you can take advantage of good online tutorials.
There are several CorelDRAW plans. The Essential pricing plan is around $129.
Corel Vs Affinity
Coreldraw is best for:
Startups
SMBs
Home businesses
Vector illustration
Layer-based photo editing
Media library
Gravit Designer
Gravit Designer is another graphic design software from Corel. It’s mainly for vector design but it also includes image and photo editing tools.
Gravit Designer is a pretty professional software. The interface is very busy and there is a learning curve. But the results pay off in the long run. It runs on macOS, Windows, Linux and Chrome. Advanced vector editing includes smart shapes, Boolean operations, vector path manipulation and object styling. Image editing has cropping, scaling and clipping. You can also rasterize selections to bitmap objects.
There’s a free version of Gravit Designer. It only gets you 500 MBs of cloud storage. For unlimited storage there is Gravit Designer Pro at $49 per year.
Gravit designer is best for:
Startups
SMBs
Large businesses
Vector editing
Cross-platform functionality
Poster and ad design
Affinity Designer
Affinity is under the banner of British software company Serif. The Affinity brand has many tools and Affinity Designer is one of their most popular. It works on desktop and iOS.
This is Affinity’s vector design app. It’s a real competitor with Adobe Illustrator, but its formats are also compatible with it. The vector drawing tools are robust. These include 1 Million percent zoom, live effects, and real-time blending. Affinity Designer can handle thousands of objects without slowing down your computer. You can easily toggle between vector-only objects or vector with raster. The typography is also very artistic. For image editing there is Affinity Photo, a separate app.
The Windows or Mac versions of Affinity Designer are $49, and the iPad version costs less. Affinity Design also offers free trials on the desktop versions.
Affinity Designer is best for:
Startup
Small businesses
Large businesses
Vector illustration
Complex documents
Tablet version
Pixlr
Pixar is owned by 123RF whose roots are in license-free stock image content. Today Pixlr is one of the most popular free and easy online graphic design tools. It works not only on desktop and tablet, but mobile too.
Pixlr is a photo editing software. The dashboard is very intuitive. It uses simple toggling and sliding for most image editing tools. Pixlr also offers users a large content library. You pick from ready-made borders, stickers, decorative texts, icons and more. It also has an AI tool add-on. This takes over repetitive tasks like background removal. It’s great for unleashing speedy creativity.
There’s a free version of Pixlr with basic image editing tools. The Pro version is $4.90 per month and the Premium is $14.99 per month. Check the site for promotions.
Pixlr is best for:
Individuals
Startups
Small teams
Small businesses
Photo editing
Content library
Mobile apps
Vectr
Vectr is a totally free vector design platform. You can use it online or download it to your desktop. It’s part of the 123RF and Inmagine tech family along with Pixlr.
Vectr has a very quick learning curve. There are helpful tutorials but the tools are intuitive too. As for vector design it’s toolkit is basic but enough for basic graphic design. You can share your ongoing projects in real time with a unique URL. It’s great for team collaboration. Vectr is a cross-platform app. It will sync between online edits and the desktop.
There will always be a free version of Vectr. The website says they are working on a pro version with new features to “keep the lights on.”
Vectr is best for:
Individuals
Startups
Small teams
Small businesses
Vector graphic design
Team collaboration
Choosing the best graphic design apps for your needs: key takeaways
Now that you’ve gone through our list, we hope you have a better idea of the best graphic design software out there. And that you are closer to picking the right graphics software for your needs.
Here are some of the key takeaways. Adobe is still an industry standard and a dominant brand for all things graphic design. For photo editing software Photoshop is still very popular. If you are looking for something free and open-source, GIMP by GNU is worth checking out.
While for illustration and vector graphics, Illustrator remains a favorite. However when it comes to the more professional apps, Affinity Designer and Gravit Designer are good competitors for Adobe Illustrator. On the other hand, if you are on a budget, look into InkScape and Canva.
Another option is to consider the duo of Pixlr and Vectr. Between these two light and simple apps you get both photo editing tools and illustration tools.
Conclusion
Graphic design software may be a necessary app to help your business or organization. You need to create a striking visual impression of your brand that sticks in the public’s mind’s eye. But it goes beyond that one perfect logo. For this you don’t just need the most powerful graphic design tools, but also easy ones.
You want a graphics suite that can help you create a constant flow of new visual content. These days we are so bombarded with images that staying front-of-mind means always producing new material.
Balancing powerful and professional features with simplicity and speed is a core decision in choosing the best graphic design software. For this you need to know what your graphic designers require, and how each different app helps them be creative and productive.
And finally, if you are planning on learning graphic design yourself, learning curves are a big deal. We hope this piece gives you an idea of how to take your first graphic design steps.
It won’t be long before you are on your way to becoming a digital artist. All it takes is a little technical know-how and a good deal of personal creativity. Who knows, you might make the next swoosh, arches or bitten apple.
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Canva
Canva is the most popular online editing tool that has the high number of users online. Canva includes templates, vector art, stock photography for you to utilise to create a unique image.It includes multiple editing programs as it was possible to edit your images with editing programs or filters. You can download Canva onto your phone and edit photos that are instantaneous. Improve your layout and select one from hundreds of fonts that are available I this tool. The Canva Marketplace includes a lot of graphics, images, cards and templates which can make your life simpler in creating the content for your website or blog.It is possible to correct elements of your pictures add templates and fonts if you want and so much more in a way that you like to utilise. It’s Over 8,000 template with attributes like vignette and Photo blur. Canva is simple to use and targeted towards professionals and novices.GIMP
coreldraw alternativeGIMP has a high value regarding quality output. It is a free professional photo editing software with attributes that help you to create images along with picture photographs, photo composition, picture enhancement. You could even make graphics authority with GIMP. It includes a built-in file manager that is easy to download and install. The image retouching and photo composition features in the application makes it unique and makes it a competition to Photoshop.The attributes include Photo Enhancements tools such as vignette and style: optimisation styles and simple File management such as Digital Retouching with touch-up tools and Clone.Inkscape
inkscape is a free design tool for the designers. It is editing software perfect for professional photographers. With inkscape, you can create vector images, develop beautiful logos and much more. Concerning features, it stands close to CorelDraw and Abobe Illustrator.READ ALSO20 Best Free Photoshop Alternative in 2020 [Windows and Mac]inkscape gives you complete control over clone objects and colours. inkscape works great for Windows and Mac operating system, or you can also download the app. It offers all the vital features you may want from an Adobe Illustrator, and CorelDraw and some feel that it does the task more efficiently.Krita (Open-Source)
If a free tool like CorelDraw is your preference today, you can opt for the last one mentioned on the list here. Krita combines basic digital drawing features and intuitive UI to let you try your photo editing capabilities to an optimum level.Krita also competes with a couple of photo editing tools, namely, GIMP and Paint.Net. You get to try different layers, brush types, HDR, and multiple layouts on the image you want to transform. Krita does support various file types, and most importantly, vector image editing. Its extensive support for brush engines lets you switch to custom brushes so you can draw objects per your wish.PicMonkey
The complete graphics tool which lets you edit photographs, collages, touch up images, crop and much more in a user-friendly interface. This can allow you also to bring your imagination out and develop your design skills.With a free trial, you can test out all the features of PicMonkey before you purchase the software. To edit your photographs, you can start using templates that are special or arrange your pictures in a row. It ha beautiful Collage effects and Basic Filters with prebuilt Templates. You can also print photos, share on social media the cards, canvases and more directly from PicMonkey.Paint.NET
According to some of the professionals, it is a free alternative To Microsoft Paint, this application focuses on simplicity and using an intuitive yet straightforward user-friendly interface. When you begin using Paint.NET, you’ll discover the machine amazingly uses data and is feature-rich. Its strong point is editing and retouching of graphics and photographs.You can add Curved images and various-colour tone adjustments — not only that but special effects like red-eye removal, transparency, blurring, contrast etc. You can see the history and tools for auto- shapes. Paint.NET is the companion if you’re interested in finding an easy-to-learn yet competent program.SVG Edit
The SVGEdit uses only JavaScript, HTML5, CSS and SVG for its functioning. It saves time in loading elements, booting an application and doing stuff. This usually means it does not require communication and functions on your browser. Yes, it is open source application, and you can download the source code online. The user also has the option to modify it according to his needs.READ ALSOTop 10 best free Email Clients for windows in 2017The toolset is sufficient for and producing layouts, such as The features like editing, free-hand paint, text, template images, gradients, importing and exporting are something that makes it an easy tool.In both Mac and Windows, you can also resize, change, add or remove multiple images. You Should Use Docs and Slides as it has an easy to use interface that lets you start with RAW files and lets you combine pictures.Skencil
Skencil is an application with full of features that can be used to draw elaborate images on digital canvas. It is an open source application available online that works with vector related tasks. It can also be used for diagrams, illustrations, and other purposes. One of the latest features is to use B-Splines that helps you to utilise the function with your own.Currently, the free version lets you do all the necessary actions, but you require more, you can always opt for the paid version. The paid version provides you with all the premium features, but you can still use free version it for decent small tasks. It does support Python scripts and add-ons. The script list and add-ons are provided on their website. The application can be used for the free and paid version.Affinity Designer
Affinity Designer is yet another MAC based creative app. The app comes with rich Features and offers excellent tools for generating artwork. It is developed by Serif and is free of cost. TThe text and vector handling are proper, and you will enjoy working with this app. The app comes with tons of features to handle vector art, and you can also use the raster tools to finalise the images you can take their control.However, It cannot perform complicated tasks for print work, and for that, you might want to use Adobe Illustrator or any other alternative for print design work. The most important aspect of the Affinity Designer is the support for native OS X technologies such as Grand Central Dispatch, OpenGL, and core graphicsREAD ALSO12 Best Free IDM Alternatives | Internet Download Manager AlternativeFatpaint
A feature is the option to generate text images by merely deciding upon a 3D template and entering text. Assessing the effects with scalable editing option is possible. It works great with Mac and Windows systems. It gives a package of correction and communicating applications that satisfy the requirements of photographers.The internet graphic design instrument gives you to do so much more than merely paint. Editing is not a complicated task at all for this user – friendly tool. The vector illustrations or 3D text and logos can be easily created.It comes with vector clipart for you and not quite one million fonts to utilise. The advanced photo editing, vector drawing or dealing with many layers or pages are this application’s strongpoints. A feature is the chance Magnificent 3D text graphics by deciding upon a 3D template and inputting text.G Suite
Google has also bundled its communication, collaboration and productivity apps formerly known as Google Apps, You can use its free desktop version with the all the features that are available on its online photo editing version, under the name G Suite. The strong point of this tool is its secure collaboration with others but for complex image manipulation.The Documents and Slides are used to create simple designs for marketing campaigns. The app can sync based on Google Sheets that provide value to the customer projects as he can actively share data online without hassle.The versions are readily available for both Mac and Windows users. It features a package of processing and correction programs that satisfy the requirements of photographers.The software has a Restore Function that lets you start from the previous session. The photo editing, vector drawing or dealing together with pages or layers are this application’s points that make it unique.It enables you to make presets in your toolbar to select your graphics. It comes with vector clipart for you and one million fonts to utilise and choose on the images.Affinity Designer Vs Coreldraw
At the ClosingIt’s no secret that advertising is incredibly useful for marketing and enable you to reach millions through posters and flyers. These best Coral draw alternative software for designers and marketers will help to engage your target audience cost-effectively.The alternatives are as compelling as Coral Draw with few of them are more powerful in a specific task. Do, you think, I have missed something? If so, don’t forget to comment on the article. Also, do not forget to visit for more exciting updates and tutorials.Related Posts
