With so many options available, choosing the perfect software for your needs can be challenging. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the top 10 best graphic design tools for 2023 to help you create stunning visuals, no matter your skill level or budget.
Short Summary
- Explore the top 10 best graphic design tools in 2023, from Canva Pro and Adobe Illustrator to Krita and GIMP.
- Each offers powerful features, user-friendly interfaces & flexible pricing plans for varied budgets.
- Find a comprehensive solution that suits your needs & explore creative possibilities with these industry-standard tools.
Canva. Design for everyone.
In a visual world, Canva Pro makes it easy for anyone to achieve their goals and create professional designs with premium content and features like Brand Kit, Background Remover, and more.
Canva Pro
Canva! Pro is an intuitive graphic design tool that caters to both beginners and professionals. With its user-friendly interface and extensive library of templates, images, and fonts, Canva Pro makes creating stunning designs easy. Some of the features offered by Canva Pro include:
- Pre-made templates
- Brand Kit
- Resize tool
- Background remover tool
Whether you’re just starting out or looking to take your designs to the next level, Canva Pro has everything you need to get started on your graphic design journey.
While the free version of Canva Pro is suitable for individuals and small teams, the paid plans unlock a full suite of features and offer 100 GB of cloud storage. The pricing structure ranges from a free plan to more advanced options, catering to various needs and budgets.
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator is a renowned graphic design software known for its precision and versatility in creating vector graphics. Illustrator offers a variety of creative freedom in illustrations and logo design. It is a key component of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, making it an essential tool for those pursuing a graphic design career.
With a wealth of features and graphic design tools at your disposal, Illustrator is a must-have for any serious graphic designer.
Features:
Adobe Illustrator offers a range of features that cater to every designer’s needs. Freehand drawing with digital brushes, pencils, and pens allows for custom brush creation and smooth lines and curves. Advanced color options enable users to create and save color swatches, adjust saturation and brightness, and develop color palettes for cohesive designs.
Scalable vector graphics can be created using:
- Shapes
- Lines
- Curves
- Edges
With the ability to save custom shapes and adjust line width and opacity, Adobe Illustrator is considered one of the best graphic design software tools available.
Pricing:
Adobe Illustrator offers a free trial version, allowing users to test the software before committing to a subscription. The annual plan paid monthly costs $20.99 per month, while the monthly plan is $31.49 per month.
Access to the software’s extensive features allows you to easily create vector graphics.
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is the go-to image editing software for many graphic designers, offering a wide range of tools and features to enhance and manipulate images. From basic editing to advanced techniques, Photoshop provides powerful capabilities for both photo retouching and digital art.
Coupled with the additional tools offered by Adobe Fresco and Adobe Spark, Photoshop is essential to any graphic designer’s toolkit.
Features:
Photoshop offers numerous features to help designers create stunning visuals. Some of these features include:
- Layers, which allow for non-destructive editing
- Selection tools, which enable precise adjustments
- Blending modes, which provide creative control over colors and effects
- Hue/saturation adjustments, which allow for fine-tuning of image colors
These features, among others, make Photoshop a powerful tool for the best graphic design.
These features and the software’s compatibility with various platforms make Photoshop an industry-standard tool for graphic designers.
Pricing:
Adobe Photoshop offers the following pricing options:
- Free trial version for users to explore its capabilities before committing to a subscription
- The annual plan paid monthly: $20.99 per month
- Monthly plan: $31.49 per month
This pricing structure provides access to the powerful tools and features that make Photoshop a popular choice for image editing.
Affinity Designer
Affinity Designer is a cost-effective alternative to Adobe Illustrator, offering a user-friendly interface and powerful design tools. Some key features of Affinity Designer include:
- Customizable interface and workspace
- Advanced vector editing tools
- Support for multiple file formats
- Seamless integration with other Affinity products
- Cross-platform compatibility
With its customizable features and compatibility with various platforms, Affinity Designer is an excellent option for designers looking for a budget-friendly solution without sacrificing quality.
It is easy to use and provides a wide range of features, making it a great choice.
Features:
Affinity Designer offers a comprehensive selection of vector brushes, a user-friendly interface, and several tools not available in Adobe Illustrator. These features make Affinity Designer an attractive choice for designers who want the power of a professional-grade design tool without the hefty price tag associated with Adobe products.
Pricing:
Affinity Designer is available for a one-time purchase of $69.99 for Windows or Mac and $18.49 for iPad, without any subscription required. This pricing model makes Affinity Designer appealing for those seeking an affordable and powerful graphic design tool.
It is a great choice for those who want to create professional-looking designs without breaking the bank.
Canva
Canva is a free and easy-to-use graphic design tool that enables users to create stunning visuals with a simple drag-and-drop interface. With a large selection of templates and assets at your disposal, Canva makes it easy to create professional-looking designs without prior design experience.
The free version of Canva offers a range of features, making it a great starting point for beginners. For those who require more advanced capabilities, Canva Pro is available for a monthly subscription fee, providing access to additional features such as the Brand Kit, resize, and background remover tools.
Features:
Canva’s features include:
- A drag-and-drop interface that simplifies the design process
- An extensive selection of templates and assets for various design needs
- Tools and resources for creating social media graphics, presentations, and print materials
With Canva, you can bring your design vision to life.
With Canva, you can easily customize templates to fit your brand’s style and create custom templates.
Pricing:
Canva offers a variety of pricing options to suit different needs and budgets. The Free Plan has limited features, while Canva Pro is priced at $12.99 monthly.
Canva for Teams starts at $14.99 per month for up to 5 individuals, with each additional team member charged at $14.50. This flexible pricing structure ensures that Canva can cater to a wide range of users and design requirements.
Sketch
Exclusively designed for Mac users, Sketch is a vector editing software with a user-friendly interface and customizable features. With its range of powerful design tools and compatibility with various platforms, Sketch is an excellent option for designers seeking a comprehensive design solution tailored to the Mac ecosystem.
Features:
Sketch offers a variety of features to streamline the design process, including:
- Symbols
- Smart guides
- Grids
- Libraries
- Prototyping tools
These features and the software’s collaborative capabilities make Sketch popular for designers looking to create polished, professional designs.
Sketch’s features make it easy to create designs quickly and efficiently, while Sketch’s features make it easy to create designs quickly and efficiently.
Pricing:
Sketch is available through a one-time payment and an annual license fee, making it an attractive option for those seeking a cost-effective design solution without the need for a subscription.
The pricing details for Sketch can be found in this section.
Procreate
Procreate is a powerful digital illustration app designed specifically for iPad users. With its customizable brushes and a range of creative tools, Procreate offers artists the ability to create stunning digital artwork and illustrations on the go.
The app is easy to use and intuitive, eliminating the steep learning curve, making it perfect for both experienced and novice digital users.
Features:
Procreate boasts a variety of features that cater to the needs of digital artists, including:
- QuickShape
- StreamLine
- Drawing Assist
- ColorDrop
These intuitive tools allow artists to easily create intricate designs and illustrations, making Procreate a valuable addition to any digital artist’s toolkit.
The features of Procreate make it an ideal choice for digital artists who want to create beautiful artwork.
Pricing:
Procreate is available for a one-time purchase of $9.99, offering users a powerful digital illustration app without the need for a subscription. This pricing model makes Procreate an affordable option for artists looking to create stunning digital artwork on their iPads.
The app is packed with features, including a wide range of brushes, layers, and other features.
Figma
Figma is a versatile and free online design tool that offers designers vector graphics capabilities and collaboration features. With its range of advanced tools and compatibility with various platforms, Figma is a great option for those seeking a comprehensive design solution without the need for a subscription.
It is easy to use and has a user-friendly interface, making it ideal for both beginners and experienced users.
Features:
Figma offers a range of features that facilitate collaborative design, such as component variants, bulleted lists, and the ability to connect multiple Figma accounts. In addition, Figma boasts advanced features like conditional logic, mathematical expressions, and variables for constructing realistic prototypes quickly.
These capabilities, combined with Figma’s accessibility and flexibility, make it a popular choice for digital product design.
Pricing:
Figma offers free and paid plans catering to various needs and budgets. The Professional plan is priced at $12 per editor per month, while the Organization plan costs $45 per editor per month.
Figma’s. The free plan provides a selection of features for those looking to get started with the software.
Inkscape
Inkscape is a free, open-source vector graphics software offering various design tools and compatibility with various platforms. With its powerful features and user-friendly interface, Inkscape is an excellent choice for designers seeking a cost-effective solution for creating vector graphics.
Inkscape is a great choice for those who want to create professional-looking vector graphics without the need for Photoshop.
Features:
Inkscape provides a wealth of features related to object creation and manipulation, fill and stroke, operations on paths, text support, rendering, and file formats. These powerful features make Inkscape a versatile tool for artistic and technical illustrations, such as cartoons, clip art, logos, typography, diagramming, and complex web graphics.
Inkscape is an ideal professional graphic design tool for creating the best graphic designs, making it perfect for professional-looking graphics for a variety of purposes. As a free graphic design software, it offers a cost-effective solution for those in need of high-quality design tools.
Compatibility:
Inkscape is compatible with various platforms, including:
- Windows
- Mac
- Linux
- and others
This wide compatibility makes Inkscape a convenient option for designers working on different operating systems and devices.
It is also open source, meaning that it is free to use and modify. This makes it better.
GIMP
GIMP, or GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a free, open-source graphic design software that offers powerful photo editing capabilities. With its compatibility with various platforms, GIMP is an excellent choice for designers seeking a cost-effective image manipulation and editing solution.
GIMP is a great tool for creating and editing digital images, and it can be used to create and edit digital images.
Features:
GIMP offers a range of features such as:
- Layers
- Selection tools
- Blending modes
- Hue/saturation adjustments
These features make it a versatile tool for image editing and manipulation. With its powerful tools and compatibility with various platforms, GIMP is a popular choice for designers seeking a free alternative to Adobe Photoshop.
Compatibility:
GIMP is compatible with various platforms, such as Windows, Mac, Linux, and others, making it a convenient option for designers working on different operating systems and devices. GIMP’s compatibility with popular file formats, such as BMP, JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, and HEIF, ensures that designers can easily import and export their work.
GIMP also offers a wide range of features, including layers, masks, filters, and more.
Krita
Krita is a free, open-source digital art software that offers a variety of creative tools and compatibility with various platforms. Some key features of Krita include:
- Extensive range of brushes
- Layer management
- Customizable interface
- Support for various file formats
- Animation tools
- Symmetry tools
With its extensive range of brushes and other creative tools, Krita is an excellent choice for digital artists looking for a comprehensive design solution without the need for a subscription.
Krita is easy to use and provides a wide range of features, from basic drawing tools to advanced drawing tools.
Features:
Krita offers a comprehensive set of painting tools, including:
- Brush engines
- Brush stabilizers
- Wrap-around mode
- Layer styles
- Selection tools
- Transform tools
It also has tile-based memory management, which allows artists to work with large canvas sizes without experiencing performance issues. Additionally, Krita has features for photo enhancement, digital retouching, and data export.
These powerful features make Krita an attractive option for digital artists looking to create hand-painted images with precision and control.
Krita’s user-friendly interface and intuitive design make learning and using it easy.
Compatibility:
Krita is compatible with various platforms, including:
- Windows
- Mac
- Linux
- Android
- ChromeOS
This wide compatibility makes Krita a flexible and convenient option for artists working on different operating systems and devices.
Krita is designed to be user-friendly, with an intuitive interface and a range of features.
Summary
In conclusion, the top 10 best graphic design tools in 2023 offer a diverse range of features, capabilities, and pricing options to suit the unique needs of every designer. Whether you’re a beginner looking for an easy-to-use solution or a seasoned professional seeking advanced functionality, these graphic design tools provide the resources and flexibility to bring your creative vision to life. So go ahead and explore the endless possibilities of graphic design with the right tools at your fingertips.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are some popular graphic design tools for content creators?
Popular graphic design tools include Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign), Canva, Sketch, and Figma.
Can I use these graphic design tools without any prior design experience?
Yes, many graphic design tools like Canva and Adobe Spark are designed to be user-friendly and accessible to beginners, with templates and tutorials to guide you.
Are there any free graphic design tools available for content creators?
Yes, several free graphic design tools are available such as Canva, Gravit Designer, Inkscape, and GIMP. However, some may offer additional features or resources at a premium.
Can I use these graphic design tools on both my computer and mobile devices?
Many graphic design tools offer both desktop and mobile versions. For example, Canva and Adobe Spark can be used on a computer browser or via their mobile apps.
What kind of content can I create using these graphic design tools?
You can create a wide range of content, including social media posts, blog graphics, presentations, posters, email headers, infographics, and much more.
Do these graphic design tools offer templates for design beginners?
Yes, many graphic design tools offer pre-designed templates that you can customize to fit your needs, making it easier for beginners to create professional-looking designs.
Can I collaborate with others on a design project using these tools?
Some graphic design tools, like Canva and Figma, offer real-time collaboration features, allowing multiple users to work on a design simultaneously.
How can I share my designs directly from these tools?
Many graphic design tools allow you to share your designs directly from the platform. You can share via email, generate a shareable link, or post directly to social media platforms.
Do these tools provide resources for learning more about graphic design?
Yes, many graphic design tools provide tutorials, guides, and resources to help you learn more about design principles and how to use their tools effectively.
Can I use my own images and fonts in these tools?
Yes, most graphic design tools allow you to upload and use your own images and fonts, allowing for greater customization of your designs.
