“There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” — Milton Glaser.
It’s no secret that web graphic designing has become one of the most preferred career choices for talented candidates across the globe. However, getting your foot into the industry as a graphic designer isn’t that easy. Being a successful graphic designer is not just about having a creative mindset but it also requires an in-depth understanding of the latest technology, tools, and techniques. These tools can help you simplify the entire process and execute ideas to reality without much effort.
In the list below, we have highlighted the top 17 iOS, Android, and desktop apps that are worth downloading for every graphic designer. If you’re into graphic design, you will be amazed to see how these apps can make your life and work 10x easier.
Photoshop
Photoshop is an extremely powerful graphics editor that helps designers and image editors to unleash their creativity. It’s an easy-to-use software with which you can create images from scratch, or retouch an existing image to create something better. The features offered by this software support both pixel-based images as well as vector graphics.
ProofHub
ProofHub is a project management software trusted by thousands of designers and developers across the globe. This software offers a range of robust features that make the entire designing process quick and easy. Real-time collaboration and online file proofing are some of the exciting features that this simple tool has to offer. Furthermore, it also provides various markup tools that enable designers to get accurate feedback from their clients in the form of highlighted details and annotations.
FontShop
Speaking of graphic designing, it is not just about the design you create or the color combination you choose. Using the right font in your design is also a great deal. Tools like FontShop make it a lot easier for designers to find the right font for their design from a collection of professional, featured fonts and typefaces. If you’re a designer, you can buy and download trendy fonts for desktop, web, and apps using FontShop.
Canva
When it comes to designing, Canva is the type of graphic design tool that makes a design look more appealing. It allows creative minds to create unique designs and collaborate on them with easy drag and drop functionality. The basic version of this design platform is available for free. You can use it to create business cards, infographics, social media posters, and more.
Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator is one of the most popular tools among creatives – non-designers as well as professionals. It’s a simple vector graphics editor that is primarily used for creating and editing vector images.
Sketch
Sketch is a graphic driven software designed for Apple’s macOS. One of the main reasons why many designers and creatives prefer to use this tool is due to the fact that the tool is simple to use and focuses on user interface design. It’s a perfect companion for those who wish to create designs for multiple devices and deliver extraordinary results.
Marvel
Marvel is a powerful platform that transforms the way you create digital products. The simple interface of this platform works for both non-designers and advanced UX folks. With marvel canvas, you can create unique design specs, add integrations, and even sync designs from your cloud storage.
Pixelmator
Pixelmator is a simple image editor tool that is designed to trigger innovation in the entire designing process. It offers a range of handcrafted brushes and intelligent image editing features that help to bring out the actual beauty of a design or image.
Sublime text
Sublime Text is a cross-platform source code editor that lets you focus on your code. It has a python application programming interface that allows you to filter a file or make quick edits using easy shortcuts.
Paletton
Paletton is a color scheme designer that gives you a perfect color combination for your website. Monochromatic, adjacent colors, triad, tetrad, freestyle, etc are some of the amazing combinations that this tool has to offer. If you often get a hard time picking the right colors in your website or design, Paletton is the tool you need.
InPaint
InPaint is a software designed for performing basic photo editing functions. There are times when graphic designers struggle to alter or edit an image because of digital watermarking. Originally, the process of removing watermarks from an image is not an easy job. But with InPaint, designers and professional creatives can edit and work on the image as needed.
Webflow
Webflow is a great tool for designers who are looking to build responsive websites in a relatively lesser time. It is a web-based drag and drop tool that gives you the ability to design and develop websites at the same time. And the best part is that you won’t have to worry about the code, just export and change the HTML/CSS tags as per your needs.
Iconfinder
Iconfinder is an online marketplace where designers can search vector icons in SVG, PNG, CSH and AI format. It hosts over 2,171,326 icons in its collection. So, when you choose to use Iconfinder, you get access to all the trendy and inspirational icons available on this leading search engine. Also, all the icons available on Iconfinder are licensed to be used for commercial purposes.
Cheetah3D
3D art is at its emergence and Cheetah3D is a versatile software that gives designers the ability to perform 3D modeling, animation and rendering with ease. The software is programmed to work for both new and experienced users. If you’re new at designing, Cheetah3D will offer you an amazing experience with powerful editing features and a node based materials system.
Coolors
The type of colors you choose for your design plays a crucial role in determining the kind of response it will get. That is why it is important that you focus on choosing the perfect palette for your design. Now, this is where tools like Colors make your job easier. Coolors is a popular color scheme generator that allows you to generate, save, and share striking color combinations in just a few seconds.
Color Picker
Color Picker is a free color scheme generator for web designers. It allows them to pick a suitable color scheme and update the existing one with complete HEX, HSL, and RGB info. The color scheme generated using this tool are easy to be exported as CSS or Sass code. This is a web-friendly tool and certainly a brilliant tool for new web designers.
Diigo
Diigo is a popular social bookmarking website that is also considered as a powerful research tool and a collaborative community in the web designing world. This simple tool allows web designers to bookmark web pages and highlights specific parts of a web page using sticky notes. Also, the outliner in Diigo enables you to streamline your research and share your knowledge with other signed-up users.
So these are a few apps that every graphic designer should install right now. And if you are already using any of the apps mentioned above, tell us how they made designing easier for you. Also, if you know about a graphic design app that deserves to be included in our list, send us a message on contact us page!
