If you’re a beginner in graphic design, there are many software options to choose from. Each has its own features and specialty, so you need to understand what you’re looking for before you pick one.
For example, Adobe Photoshop is a popular photo editing program that’s often used for creating graphics and logos. It’s also an industry-standard choice for professional designers, and it’s a great option for beginners.
Canva
Canva is a design software platform that helps you create beautiful graphics for your website and social media posts. It is free to use and has thousands of templates, pictures and videos for your inspiration.
Canva also has a mobile app for creating designs on the go. You can download it and access your account on any device that supports the app.
The platform offers a library of over 1 million templates and millions of photos to use in your designs. It also allows you to personalize these templates to align with your brand.
But while the platform is easy to use, it can be frustrating at times if you want to make your designs unique. There are hundreds of thousands of pre-made design templates in Canva, and many of them look very generic.
However, this doesn’t mean you can’t have a custom design. It just means you might need to work with a designer who is familiar with these tools.
Lucidpress
Lucidpress is a web-based drag-and-drop design application that’s perfect for both print and digital documents. It offers real-time collaboration and a polished user experience for both students and professionals.
It’s especially useful for teachers who need to create materials for class newsletters, parent newsletters, grade sheets, rubrics and student projects. The ease of use, a variety of templates, and an affordable price make it a great option for a new user.
The tool’s templates are crafted by professional designers, so even non-designers can easily design on-brand marketing materials. It also has a data automation feature that allows users to auto-populate data fields when creating marketing materials, making the process faster and easier.
It offers a free Educational account that includes all features, and plans are available in Basic, Pro and Team tiers. The higher tiers offer more storage space, embedding capabilities and PDF printing.
Vistacreate
VistaCreate (formerly Crello) is an online visual editor for designing social media posts, WordPress blog visuals, marketing materials, print materials, and more. Its easy-to-use editing instruments and templates help beginners produce attractive visuals with little or no graphic design experience.
The website offers an extensive library of templates and creative assets, which can be customized in a matter of minutes. You can add text, photos, graphics, backgrounds, logos, and music to your designs to create outstanding content.
When you’re ready to share your creation, you can download it in JPG, PNG, or PDF formats, and add it to your favorites. You can also upload your design to the website’s archive so it stays available for download even after you’re finished with it.
VistaCreate also offers a huge collection of stock photos from Depositphotos, which Pro users can access. These photos, animations, and videos are great for adding a touch of whimsy to your designs.
Inkscape
Inkscape is a free, open source, vector graphics editor that can be used for a variety of design tasks. It’s a popular choice for beginners because of its simple interface and intuitive user experience.
In Inkscape, you can create vector graphics by combining points, lines, curves, and shapes. These objects are based on mathematical equations and can be converted into paths, which Inkscape can use to create drawings, diagrams, and other graphic designs.
One of the first things that you will want to learn is how to create and place shapes. Inkscape has four different shape tools: rectangles, circles, stars, and spirals.
Another tool that Inkscape is equipped with is the Create Tiled Clones feature. This is a great way to create multiple versions of a single object, and it can be very useful when creating patterns or other repeating elements.
Inkscape also offers a wide range of other tools and features for designers and artists to utilize. These include node editing functionality, an impressive text tool, a color picker that allows you to sample colors from vector or raster images, and much more.