The advertising industry is very old and the first sparks of its formation are related to ancient Greece. But after the digital revolution and also the entry of the Internet into the daily life of human beings, the advertising industry took on a new color, and graphic design, as one of the powerful arms of this field, underwent many changes.
Today, graphic design plays a very prominent role in the business environment, and almost all businesses need to produce effective graphic content; Visual identity, logo, website, etc. need graphic designers.
One of the most important reasons for the importance of graphic design is the direct connection of their outputs with the audience. There are many advertisements that have attracted people or, on the contrary, pushed a group away forever and taken them to competitors.
Apart from the skills that graphic designers usually acquire based on their training and experience, knowing specialized tools for graphic design is a very important issue in any business.
This issue is more important for people who plan to start designing and learn one or more software programs than for managers.
In this article, which is a comprehensive guide to the best and most widely used graphic design software, I intend to introduce 11 of the best design tools and also mention the advantages and disadvantages of each, to further guide the path you want to take for graphic design education. I hope reading this article will be useful for you.
Table of Contents
The best graphic design tools
1) Photoshop (Adobe Photoshop)
Adobe Photoshop is one of the best design and photo editing programs for designers. It doesn’t matter what software you are going to work with professionally. Learning Photoshop as an all-in-one tool is essential for all designers, especially in the design of advertising banners and posters.
Key Features
Comprehensive design tools: Photoshop provides very wonderful tools for design, which not only in the field of digital design and website design, but also in banner and poster advertising, makes you completely unnecessary of other tools.
Creative cloud: The ability to synchronize Photoshop with Adobe Creative Cloud brings you unique features, in this regard, you can: Content-Aware Crop, Face-Aware Liquify, Artboards, the Design Space view, synced libraries, a glyph panel , Cloud Documents, touch, stylus input support and… Mentioned.
Excellent user interface: In general, Adobe is constantly improving and upgrading its user interface, in this regard, Adobe in Photoshop software has various work spaces for graphic design, web design, motion, 3D design, painting, photography and … proposed.
Disadvantages
Adobe Photoshop comes with a subscription to Adobe Creative.
Its frequent payments may be expensive for some.
Note: In our country, Adobe Photoshop, like many other software, is downloaded as a crack, and these cases are not considered to be its weaknesses, but due to the lack of interference in what is mentioned in various sources in this section, paid.
2) Adobe InDesign
Adobe InDesign is the best software for e-book design. It is magazines, publications and brochures and it can be said that it has no strong competitors in this field. So if you plan to design an e-book for your website or have a hand in designing magazines, go to learn this software without any additional steps and do not hesitate on your way.
Key Features
Easy to learn: Unlike Photoshop (which requires more time to learn and master due to the wide range of tools and applications), design education requires less time and people who are interested in this field can learn it in a few days. Learn well and start a small project to consolidate what you have learned and know your strengths and weaknesses.
Adjust Layout: The Adjust Layout feature enables the designer to change only the text of the template as needed without changing the elements, which is great for infographics.
Sensi technology: Sensi technology adjusts the size and order of images automatically. Using artificial intelligence and equipped with a recommendation system, this technology will make it very easy for you to adapt and adjust images, especially in large projects.
Disadvantages
It is very suitable for organizational work.
It is more expensive than similar software.
3) CorelDraw Graphics Suite
CorelDraw Graphics Suite software has a significant number of professional features that also has a wonderful user interface that is easy to use and will help you edit images well.
Key Features
Powerful library: Corel has a powerful digital library through which registered users can access thousands of high resolution digital photos and images. It also includes more than 2000 templates, 1000 fonts, more than 500 interactive frames, etc.
Flexible Payment: Corel has three separate payment plans through which users can purchase the software along with nominal fees for periodic upgrades.
Customizable UI: You get a customizable UI environment for your desktop, icons, toolbox, options for how your documents open, and window border color scheme. Users can also use the Corel Developer Community website to design custom macros for their project.
Versatility: This software is very suitable for projects with large dimensions, for example 20 x 30 meters, while software like Illustrator may have limitations in this case.
Diverse Outputs: The program is able to support files in up to 48 different formats including AutoCAD, JPG, PNG, SVG, AutoCAD, JPG and TIFF. It can also open 35 file types including EPS, HTML, AutoCAD, PDF, PowerPoint, SVG and even old freeHand files.
Disadvantages
Unlike Adobe, no mobile apps are provided by Corel.
Unlike Adobe, it is not very easy for beginners.
Relatively high cost
4) Inkspace
Inkscape is free graphic design software that can help designers create scalable or vector graphics that don’t stretch or blur when resized. In other words, this software will help you in designing vector images.
Key Features
User experience: This software has a great user experience, and if you have worked with Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator once, you will be able to learn this software easily.
Regular updates: Another very good feature of this software is that it is fully open source and apart from that, due to the strong support of the developer team, it regularly releases updates to improve the user experience and interface.
Completely free: Unlike the Adobe software, this software is usually referred to as an alternative to Illustrator. It is completely free and users anywhere in the world can download it and use it to advance their projects.
Open source: As mentioned, this software is open source and programmers can customize it according to their needs or the user.
Note: Due to the open source nature of this software, it is possible to install inkspace on Linux.
Disadvantages
Its processing is a little slower than other software.
The Mac version is not error-free
Its outputs are sometimes not compatible with Illustrator.
5) Sketch
Like Illustrator, Sketch is a vector-based software that is commonly used by web and Ui/UX designers.
Key Features
Reasonable price: You can get and use Sketch yearly subscription for a very small fee.
Mobile and web compatible: Sketch avoids showing half pixels or incomplete pixels. This issue will be very effective in multiple display and out of resolution images.
Custom plugins: Sketch has the ability so that designers can add different plugins to the software according to their needs.
Templates: Sketch has a valuable library of templates suitable for IOS design and Responsive Design, which users can use in the best way depending on their needs.
Disadvantages
Still, as a powerful tool in the field of vector image design, it has not been able to leave its competitors.
For designing complex images, you may face tool limitations.
When using the cloud space, the image resolution is not very high.
Only provided for mac software.
6) Adobe illustrator
Adobe Illustrator is more than just a graphic design tool and is suitable in many fields, including graphic banner design, logo design, website design, etc.
Key Features
Highly Customizable: One of the great features of Adobe Illustrator is that it offers a wide variety of templates with adjustable customization options.
In-page editing: The simultaneous editing feature provides this feature to the user so that they can manage several artboards at the same time and complete their projects more quickly.
High compatibility: Illustrator software is compatible with various operating systems, both Mac and Windows.
User interface: Another advantage of Adobe Illustrator, like all Adobe software, is its excellent user interface and high customization capabilities.
Disadvantages
It is a relatively expensive software.
Due to the high extent of this software. It may take some time to learn.
Illustrator software is heavy to install and takes up a lot of space.
7) Affinity Designer
One of the best alternative software for Illustrator, which also has high speed, is affinity designer software.
Key Features
Dual environment: through affinity designer, users can design both in vector and pixel format and output from their images.
High magnification: In Affinity Designer, you can magnify your images up to a million percent and design your images with utmost accuracy.
Disadvantages: Ability to output in ai format. It is not possible.
8) Photoscape
Photoshop is one of the best free graphic tools that has unique features for editing and managing images.
Key Features
Various editing tools: Photoshop has provided various tools for editing images so that you can easily edit and output different formats according to your project.
Multilingual: This software supports 30 different languages.
User Interface: The user interface of this software is very suitable for beginners.
Disadvantages
It does not give you tools to edit images like professional software.
Not compatible with Linux.
9) Gravity designer
This software is an html-based graphic design program that is very useful for designing vector images and is usually used by graphic designers, product designers, and web designers.
Key Features
Gravit Designer Dashboard: The dashboard design of this graphical tool is very cheap and allows you to easily switch between tabs.
Tools and Effects: Several tools, including Bezigon, Lasso, Pen, etc., allow you to easily add various elements to your original image.
Disadvantages
There is not much information about the software in official sources.
Designers can’t run prototypes on mobile.
Fonts require an active internet connection to work.