The
visual web has spawned a number of graphic design tools that make it
easy for bloggers, ebook authors,
social media marketers and all sorts of other web users to create their
own images. From simple stock images with text overlay to long and
complex infographics, these tools are some of the best alternatives to
outsourcing design work or to getting an expensive Photoshop
subscription.
Canva is one of the most popular online graphic design tools
available today. It's free to sign up, and you can instantly start
designing your own image by choosing a template, customizing the layout,
adding elements and text, uploading your own images and then
downloading your finished image when it's ready.
All of your images are automatically saved as you work on it so you
never lose your work, and you can access your images any time under your
account. Canva also has a premium option for serious businesses and
marketers, called Canva for Work.
BeFunky differs slightly from Canva for being more along the lines of
a suite of free Adobe-inspired image editing tools. It features three
main tools that you can access in your web browser: a photo editor, a
collage maker and a designer.
Similar to Photoshop,
the photo editor has a lot of options that can be used to tweak and
enhance your images. The collage tool is obviously for combining several
images into a single one while the designer tool is what you'll want to
use if you're creating images for blogs or social media.
Latigo has a very similar look and feel to Canva. Unlike Canva,
however, Latigo actually allows its users to upload videos and documents
in addition to images, also offering a built-in cloud storage system with folders to keep everything organized.
Latigo also has a bit more of a social side to it, giving users the
opportunity to build profiles where they can show off their work. In
terms of the layout of the editor and the feature offering, it's nearly
identical to what Canva offers.
Snappa
is another attractive and full-featured online graphic design tool
targeted toward marketers. Choose from thousands of photos,
patterns, shapes, vectors, fonts and more to create the best looking,
high-resolution images for your marketing campaigns and social media
accounts.
While Snappa does have a free version, it's very limited. To get
access to more features and be able to download more than five images
per month, you'll have to upgrade to their Pro plan.
Visage is for marketers who are serious about creating lots of
stunning graphics to support their content storytelling. This tool
features an incredible suite of image editing tools with Adobe
integration, all sorts of pre-created templates to choose from, a team
collaboration option and so much more.
Unsurprisingly, like Snappa, Visage is quite limited when you stick
with a free account. You'll have to upgrade to a premium individual
subscription to get access to all the extra goodies.
Another tool geared toward marketers who need compelling visual
content is Illustrio, which offers 20,000 different graphics that are
completely customizable. Choose from icons, percentages, ratings, words,
and patterns.
Just select the graphic you want to start playing around with the
color, input some text or use any of the other customizable options to
make it look exactly how you want. Although this tool is made for
customizing individual graphics that you can download and doesn't offer a
complete image and graphic editing solution, it would be great to
combine with some of the other options on this list.
Easelly is an ideal tool for creating detailed infographics and
image-based reports. The editor is easy to use and has all sorts of
options at the top that help you design and tweak your infographic.
You can add objects, drawings, shapes, text, charts, and even your
own uploads to make your infographic look exactly how you want. And if
you want your infographic to be as long and as wide as possible, all you
have to do is click and drag the bottom right corner to set your
desired size.
Piktochart is another graphic design tool specifically meant for marketers who need to create beautiful infographics, presentations, reports, and posters. The library of templates is updated weekly with new additions. And like most of the others on this list, it has an easy to use drag-and-drop editor for adding icons, images, charts, maps, and other graphics.
A free account gives you the opportunity to enjoy unlimited creations, full editor functions, complete access to all icons plus images and of course original size downloads.
If you need an intuitive tool that offers a combination of image editing and graphic design, PicMonkey may be worth consideration. The tool offers advanced Photoshop-like functions to get your photos looking their best, plus a design tool for creating cards, logos, invitations, business cards, posters and more.
Pablo — a very simple image design tool brought to you by the folks over at Buffer. It allows users to select an image and create text overlay so that it can be shared on social networks like Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and others.
It only lets you create a background image with some text over it. Even though it doesn’t offer as many features, you still get to choose from thousands of royalty-free images to use and lots of great looking fonts to make your images look as good as possible.
GRAPHIC IMAGE DESIGN TOOLS.
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