The Top 10 Free Tools You Can Use For Graphic Designing!

Not everyone has the kind of money to equip themselves with expensive design software, especially when getting on with a new career in graphic design or initiating a new business. With gazillions of newspapers, magazines and online stores trying to gain designer’s attention, it is crucial to achieve distinctiveness with high-class graphic design, layout, and content to set yourself apart from the rest of the crowd.  The ideal design software must have powerful tools and attributes making the most problematic tasks easy.

Luckily, there are lots of free graphic design software that you can select to do a good job. Here is a compilation of the 7 finest design applications and their traits:

1- SVG-Edit

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is a graphics design format in which XML is used to detail the shapes. After this is completed, an SVG viewer is utilized to render the XML. Furthermore, contemporary web browsers are just as effective of displaying SVG in much the same way they display GIF, PNG, and JPG. SVG-Edit is completely built into HTML5, JavaScript and CSS3, lacking the necessity for any server-side processing. The software is accessible over on Github.

Other than using SVG-Edit to make documents from scratch and edit them, you can also download and modify the code.

2- Serif DrawPlus Starter Edition

DrawPlus at first does not appear to be a design App that professional graphics designers can use, but it is in fact astonishingly capable, and is included in the list of the top free graphics design applications. The software is intuitive to use and features a collection of tools that mirror the functionality of Adobe Illustrator.

It also features some extra tools applied in a more user-friendly manner than Adobe’s design software, with 3D-rendering being the main. For instance, you can rapidly make a 3D object via extrusion and put on a huge amount of 3D styles that will be immediately applied to your created object. Likewise, the app features an assortment of pre-defined templates and brushes to get you on track swiftly.

DrawPlus works well in CMYK and allows you to output print-ready artwork easily in addition to being able to work with Pantone color profiles.

3- Easel.ly

Easel.ly is a free graphic design application for making cutting edge infographics. Although you may notice a few rough edges when you first start using this software, it lives to its potential of being incredibly easy to use. Just select any theme, objects, shape, then add some text in and you will end up with a satisfactory infographic in no time.

The software lets you choose from an extensive range of color-coordinated themes that are fully developed and can be edited to match your information necessities. In most cases, the result would be a complete and visually attractive infographic that has a professional look at almost no cost whatsoever. Many masterpieces have been created using this tool, effectively making it one of the best choices for making infographics.

4- Daz Studio

Daz Studio is a 3D figure animation, customization, and posing tool that lets users make amazing illustrations as well as digital animations. It is amongst the top free tools available to design exceptional artworks and make animations via environments, animals, virtual props, vehicles, accessories and many others. You only need to select your subject and or settings, arrange the lighting, and then arrange your accessories to begin making eye-catching images.

With daz studio, it is very easy to churn out illustrations for books and book covers, create custom 3D characters and avatars and other graphic design elements.

5- GIMP

GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program and is an open-source free graphics design software that first arrived on Linux and other UNIX-based platforms. Today different versions of the software are available for many other operating systems such as Windows, Mac, and Linux.

GIMP’s functionality is just like Photoshop, but its interface varies somewhat. However, a version of the program that has Adobe’s feel and appearance is available making relocation easier in case you want to ditch Photoshop. It offers a comprehensive set of tools that can be found in Photoshop; almost all that you are acquainted to –  color correction, painting tools, selection, cloning, and enhancement.

GIMP’s makers have put in a lot of effort to ensure compatibility, so there is no need to fret over problems in manipulating images in popular file formats. Adaptability is one of the strongest suits of GIMP.  Along with that, GIMP comes with an inbuilt file manager that functions along the same lines as Adobe Photoshop’s Bridge.

6- Sumopaint

This is one of the most efficient web browser-based image editors. It gives most of the standard tools you find on desktop based graphics design applications.

For this tool, the latest version of Adobe Flash player is required. It is light and loads quickly. You will find the standard range of adjustments and tools including pencils, brushes, shapes, cloning, gradients which can be opened easily from the Photoshop-esque floating toolbar. It also opens saved documents from your PC’s hard disk, making it a great choice for editing and re-editing.

7- Blender

Blender is a 3D graphic software used for visual effects, animated films, 3D printed models, art, video games and interactive 3D applications. Various features of this software are UV unwrapping, 3D modelling, sinning and rigging, texturing, particle simulation, smoke and fluid simulation, animating, sculpting, camera tracking, match moving etc.

The good news is, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

8- Sculptris

Sculptris is an ordinary, yet robust and creative modeling application from Pixologic- the creators of ZBrush. It functions the same way as the Dynamic Topology of Blender and enables the creation of in-depth details without having to split the whole model. It can be saved as a native culture file for you to edit, which is a very rare feature for any such program. It can also be exported as a ZBrush or a Wavefront file to import it into other programs.

9- Canva

A great tool for professionals and the beginners and widely considered to be the best graphic design software for beginners. The interface of Canva makes it easier to design a graphic. It has expert filters for advanced editing, and is simple to use.

Canva is an amazing tool for the clueless – any people who are new to the whole business, at the same time being incredibly handy for the professionals too. It makes designing consistently easy for everyone, but is by no means aimed only at amateurs. The simplicity and richness of the tools is such that it is guaranteed to get you coming back for more every day, and according to the company behind Canva, the current features are only 1% of what it will be giving in the future. As it is now, Canva brings such sophisticated design abilities to the masses that no parallel can be drawn of it with any other program of similar nature. We can only hope future features don’t render the service complicated to use. You can even load your graphic design software onto a hosted desktop from CloudDesktopOnline and your files, task, and calendar data onto

SharePoint by CloudAppsPortal. Then you can access from anywhere with popular client devices.

You cannot really ask more from a free online graphic design software. Once you start using it, in a few days, it won’t leave you in a mood to turn on Photoshop even if you have it installed, after you get a taste of Canva.

10- Google Developers

Google Developers (previously Google Code) is the Google’s site for software development tools, application programming interfaces (APIs), and technical resources. The site contains documentation on using Google developer tools and APIs—including discussion groups and blogs for developers that are using Google’s developer products, which is why it is another great option for amateurs and professionals alike. If you’re someone who is just starting their journey in web development, google developers can be a good place to start since it can equip you with all the necessary skills that can help you take off in your career.

Through google developers, google offers APIs for almost all of Google’s popular consumer products, such as Google Maps, YouTube, Google Apps, and many others.

The site also hosts many developer products and tools that have been designed specifically for developer use. Google App Engine is a hosting service for web apps. Project Hosting gives users version control for open source code. On the other hand, Google Web Toolkit (GWT) allows developers to create Ajax applications in the Java programming language.

The site contains reference information for community based developer products that Google is involved with such as Android from the Open Handset Alliance and OpenSocial from the OpenSocial Foundation.