Purchasing graphic software

Technology has come a long way, and software is now intuitive and helps a user express creativity more freely. Selecting the right platform would depend on your work and what you want to achieve with the software.

Businesses are always on the lookout for good graphic designers to boost their business. Therefore, as a graphic designer, you need to present your work in a stunning way through a website. Your design portfolio is the prism through which your work will be evaluated by new clients and potential employers. A great design portfolio can propel you towards success, open up new opportunities and get you just the kind of work you want.

However, failing at putting your best foot forward with your design portfolio can lead to rejects and spell doom. Given that it can make or break your career, creating your design portfolio in itself becomes the most important design exercise of your career. With online design portfolio websites becoming the default medium of presenting your work to the world, its important to make sure that you understand the dos and don'ts of a successful design portfolio website.

We had earlier put together a comprehensive guide on 20 pro tips that every designer needs to follow to create a successful online design portfolio website. However, just following any guide is not enough. You also need to think out of the box, find your own expression and figure out how to present your work in the best way possible. That's where a bit of inspiration comes in handy. At Pixpa , we have witnessed and helped thousands of designers around the world create their design portfolio websites.

We have curated a list of our favorite design portfolio websites for you to explore and learn from. Create your professional graphic design portfolio website on Pixpa easily. No coding required. Start your free trial. Disclaimer: The images shown are for illustration purposes only and may not be an exact representation of the final product. All images are copyright to their respective owners.

What software do most graphic designers use? Adobe Photoshop is the most popular and versatile software on the market that is favoured by most graphic designers, digital artists and photo editors etc. Which software is best for graphic design for beginners? Canva is an incredibly accessible software that is designed especially for people with no graphic design training or knowledge. It is easy to use and the templates make graphic design possible for everyone.

What software is needed for graphic design? You need a designing and editing software that can handle both text and graphics for graphic designing. How much does a graphic design software cost?

Depending on the software, graphic design applications can be expensive or accessible. GIMP is a popular, free and open source graphic design software. Explore More Articles See all articles. All Posts , Design , Learn ,. Anisha Singh on Nov 23, 10 min read. Featured Trending. Stunning Portfolios and Stores built on Pixpa. Create a professional website. Best Website Builders of How to Create an Online Portfolio.

Build a student portfolio website. Professionally designed templates. Best Photo Apps for Best Drawing Apps and Art Apps for Best Graphic Design Software for Designers in How to Click Aesthetic Pictures. Best Video Editing Apps for Types of photography genres you can pursue as a professional photographer. Top Tips for Aspiring Fashion Models. Most business people shy away from free software for often valid reasons, but Inkscape is certainly worth looking at before you commit to buying CorelDRAW or an Adobe CC subscription.

It also has an extension model that allows new features to be easily installed, and there are some amazing ones available. The only reservations we have are that even on a powerful PC it can be slow at times when a complicated process involves rendering. As a GPL licensed app, along with Windows, Linux and Apple Mac versions, you can also download the source code and compile it for whatever version of Linux you use. To find out more, read our full Inkscape review. Rather than the scatter-gun approach of other applications, the creators of Sketch built a tool to address a relatively narrow requirement.

Sketch is focused on screen design, specifically creating the icons and interface elements for websites and applications. And, as the software is exclusively available for the Apple Mac, mostly designers working on iPhone, iPad and macOS applications are going to find it useful. Sketch is available for a single user license. However, licenses for multiple devices are available.

Its latest version, Xara Designer Pro X , is a comprehensive design tool that can work with both bitmaps and vectors with equal aplomb.

That means it can handle DTP desktop publishing , graphic design, illustration and photo manipulation tasks in a single tool. For those wanting to mock something up rapidly, a license gives you access to over a million archive photos and illustrations to incorporate, along with hundreds of template layouts and thousands of design elements.

The price sees frequent discounts on offer. Pro X can also be found even cheaper on Steam. We've also highlighted the best laptops for video editing and music production.

A powerful software for vector graphics. Free even for commercial use. This open-source vector free graphics program is widely known as a free analog of Adobe Illustrator. Designers, who are familiar with vector graphics, will easily master this program. Here you can create projects of any complexity.

It is a winner in Inkscape vs Photoshop battle, if you need a program for beginning graphic designers as it provides a large number of modern tools and effects, including complex path manipulations, node editing, bitmap tracing, and path-based text. However, there is a separate page that contains instructions and tells how to download it. Best free graphic design software for beginners.

The developers of Gravit Designer software offer many possibilities. This is something between Inkscape and Vectr. It has more functions than Vectr and is as intuitive as Inkscape. This program allows you to do everything that you expect from a vector software and have some tools typically available in digital asset management software for photographers.

You can create curves, edit paths, manage layers and use the knife function. Besides, you can work on your projects on different platforms. Gravit Cloud provides a smooth transfer of files between desktop and online versions. A portable version of this software is also available.

Among other useful functions of Gravit, there are vector assets available. The library of Gravit Designer assets includes badges, forms, emojis and illustrations that can be combined and modified for commercial and non-commercial use. Designhill Studio is an incredible photo editor tool that comes with an innovative and user-friendly interface. It has served millions of businesses and individuals across the world. Surprisingly, the software offers an extensive library of templates, elements, and effects making editing a breeze.

What makes it even more interesting is that it's free to use. Both designers, as well as non-designers, can use it for varied purposes. But amid a global pandemic when the majority of graphic artists are working from home, having the right tools that can keep up with the changing trends in the industry is more than helpful.

While there are companies that have been forced to close and furlough their employees, this actually created more opportunities and demand in the freelancing arena. A lot of factors, however, come into play for someone who wants to establish a successful career as a freelance graphic artist.

And these are also the reasons why not everyone chooses to be a full-time freelancer. One of the important factors to consider is having the right tools that can give you an edge in a highly competitive profession. To help you out, we have prepared a compilation of the 20 best graphic design software solutions for your organization. A vector graphics solution, Adobe Illustrator CC, is highly-suitable for professional graphic designers and artists. It has a wide array of tools that can greatly help in the creation of graphic designs for websites, brand logos, video games, and print.

It works well with vector graphics, allowing users to come up with beautifully crafted designs, topography, sketches, and illustrations.

The product allows for faster design creation owing to its built-in design presets and templates, which can be easily accessed. Its integration with Adobe Creative Cloud makes sharing of projects by individuals easy. Sharp segments and clear lines can be produced as the solution can create paths that automatically align to the nearest pixel grid. Its Snap to Pixel feature can be customized to align an artwork with precise pixel boundaries. A photo, image, and graphic design editing solution, Adobe Photoshop CC is targeted at professional graphic designers, artists, and photographers.

It enables users to design websites, posters, icons, mobile apps, and banners using easy-to-use tools and built-in templates.

For photographers, the app has tools that aid in picture creation and enhancement, making excellent works of art out of photographs. Using the software, you can create and enhance illustrations, 3D artworks, and paintings. Unique patterns and effects, along with brushes, aid in the creation and customization of digital works. Other key features include brush smoke smoothing, brush management, access to Lightroom photos, paint symmetry, and luminance masking controls, among many others.

A page design and layout solution, Adobe InDesign CC is used predominantly in the creation, preflighting, and publication of documents for both print and digital media.

It is a desktop publishing software that can be used to design posters, brochures, stationery, flyers, annual reports, and magazines, among many other projects. You can also create eBooks, interactive PDFs, and digital magazines using the platform.

Adobe InDesign CC has tools that can help you collaborate with writers and editors, which will enable you to come up with and design documents a lot faster. It can share text, colors, graphics, and shapes as it gives users access to its Creative Cloud Libraries.

Other notable features include paragraph borders, object height and width, endnotes, fonts, and PDF accessibility enhancements. Canva is a cloud-based platform that lets you easily create professional-quality graphic designs. It gives you a robust and intuitive drag-and-drop editor and access to over a million graphics, images, and fonts for quickly making any type of content.

It can be used by beginners and professionals looking to produce marketing materials, corporate brochures, flyers, invitations, visual charts, book covers, presentations, and more. A vast library of templates is available to help you start your design project for whatever purpose. The graphic design solution allows you to configure templates and documents as well as to edit your designs. You can also publish your designs on the web or download and print them.

Canva is free for teams with up to 10 members and comes with 1GB of storage and access to more than 8, templates. There is also a low-cost plan for work and a quote-based enterprise plan which unlocks more features, unlimited storage, and advanced tools. A free and open-source image editing software, GIMP has a ton of features that can give the most popular software in its category a run for its money. This feature-laden tool is capable of easily fine-tuning images and creating remarkable works of art from simple photographs.

Its notable functionalities include noise reduction, image enhancement tools, customizable brushes, and color adjustment tools. GIMP also has features that can greatly benefit advanced users such as Bezier curves, filters, layer masks, and an animation package. The platform supports pre-installed or downloadable plugins, a handy feature. Its user interface is simple and can be used with ease, requiring no training at all. Albeit the product may not have the comprehensive functionalities of commercial editing tools, it has all the editing features that you need.

Customization options, meanwhile, let users enhance productivity. The software also supports third-party plugins. Pixlr is a suite of web-based image editing apps that can run on any browser and operating system. The software offers all essential photo editing tools for basic and professional-level enhancements, multi-image format templates, and over two million filters, overlays, and effects.