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For graphic designers is essential to use the best graphic design software for their work as it is our main working tool, but some beginner graphic designers or people who want to learn about it might feel lost about the question which is the best software for graphic design, and this is the question I will answer on this post.
To choose the best design software first, we need to know what you are looking for and what type of design work you will do, for example, if you plan to focus on logo design you will require vector-based software, and if you want to design magazine layouts you will need another one, so let’s see which are the best graphic design software and what they are good for.
Let’s see what are the best graphic design softwares for vector art, raster images, illustration, 3D design, and User Interface design.
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Adobe Illustrator is the industry standard if we are talking about graphic design software to create and modify vector images, so if you are planning to create logo design projects, typography, icons or illustrations, you definitely should have Adobe Illustrator in your office.
Adobe is the industry leader in graphic design software and you will get constant updates in Adobe Illustrator at the same that the best software for vector images, with amazing tools like mesh tool, pen tool, shape builder or pathfinder tools.
Best for: Logo design, typography, icon, illustration, and vector images.
Cost: Illustrator alone 20.99$/month and with the full Creative Cloud it will cost 52.99$/month
Skill level required: Advanced
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If you are looking for a great alternative to Adobe Illustrator you should consider using Affinity Designer, as it might not have the advanced features of its primary competitor the best cons about Affinity Designer is its price, as its unique payment of 49.00$ being much affordable than Illustrator.
Affinity Designer is a great vector software perfect for beginner graphic designers at the same time that the price makes it more suitable for beginners, it’s true that for more advanced graphic designers this software might get limited in some functions at the moment as the standard in the industry is Adobe Illustrator.
Best for: Logo design, typography, icon, illustration, and vector images.
Cost: 49.99$
Skill level required: From beginner to advanced
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If you are new in graphic design or want to take your first steps without investing money in it, you can use Gravit Designer as it’s a free vector toolkit with a decent set of tools and can work with AI and Sketch files.
Gravit Designers is made by the people behind Corel Draw, and it has an intuitive interface that can be customized by your needs and preferences. It offers you all the tools needed to create and edit vector graphics but if you want more advanced features you will need to buy their pro version.
Best for: Logo design, typography, icon, illustration, and vector images.
Cost: Free but the Pro version cost 49$ per year
Skill level required: Beginner
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Adobe Photoshop is the most popular graphic design software and everybody has heard about it even if it’s not related to graphic design at all, and it’s not a surprise as it is the best option for image manipulation and image editing software right now.
If you want to become a graphic designer you should use Adobe Photoshop as it is the industry-standard image editor as an illustrator is for vector graphics, it has plenty of options to work with images to help you design everything you have in mind, with the full Creative Cloud service you have access to all Adobe’s software including Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
Best for: Poster Design, Digital Collage, Digital Art and Image Editing
Cost: With the Photography Plan for individuals that includes Lightroom, lightroom classic, Photoshop, and 20GB of cloud storage it costs 9.99$/month and with the full Creative Cloud it will cost 52.99$/month
Skill level required: Beginner to advanced
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If you want to design publishing layout, editorial design, and magazine design Adobe InDesign is the best software you can use, as it is the standard for editorial design, and it’s been used since 1999 by magazines and newspapers to design their layouts.
Adobe InDesign is perfect for beginner graphic designers who want to learn how to combine text and graphics as it focused on planning the publishing layout.
Best for: Editorial Design, Magazine Design, and publishing layouts.
Cost: InDesign alone 20.99$/month and with the full Creative Cloud it will cost 52.99$/month
Skill level required: Beginner to Advanced
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Early on this post we saw that Adobe Illustrator had a competitor in vector images Softwares by Affinity, and if we talk about raster images Affinity has also its software to compete with photoshop, and it’s called Affinity Photo.
Affinity Photo is a great alternative to photoshop thanks to the price as it is a unique payment of 54.99$ being more affordable for beginner graphic designers, this image editing software has great tools for photo retouching and advanced painting tools, but for more expert graphic designers could get a little bit short as it lacks Photoshop’s advanced tools.
Best for: Poster design, photo-editing, and photomanipulation
Cost: 54.99$
Skill level required: Beginner
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Canva is one of the most popular design software for everyone as you don’t need to have any knowledge on design to use it thanks to the great number of templates, fonts, and stock images it already has. It’s an online photo editor with a drag and drop method making it very accessible to everyone.
For sure if you compare it with other design software it gets very limited and you don’t have the creative freedom you have with Photoshop, but it’s a great solution to create images and designs for different social media channels and it’s really helpful when you need to create much content and you don’t have any knowledge on design.
Best for: Social media images, template-based designs, and simple elements.
Cost: Free
Skill level required: You don’t require any design knowledge
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If you are looking for free graphic design software for photo editing similar to other paid-for design software you should take a look at GIMP, as it is the most popular open-source software for raster images.
Perhaps the user interfaces it’s not the best, in reality, you will get some advanced photo retouching tools and features making it the unique serious option if you are looking for a free raster image editing program, and it also has compatibility with popular file formats being really useful to work with.
Best for: Poster design, photo-editing, photo manipulation, and raster images
Cost: Free
Skill level required: Beginner
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As we saw in my post about graphic design trends, 3D has become a thing in graphic design being more and more usual to be used in the industry, and if you are looking for the industry standard in 3D Design the best option is Autodesk Maya.
This 3D software is a really powerful program covering the entire 3D workflow from rendering to animation, and you can see this software being used in 3D and VFX studios. As it covers this wide range of capabilities I only recommend this software for experienced graphic designers in 3D as it is hard to learn and the price tag makes it really expensive.
Best for: All types of 3D designs
Cost: 1,620$
Skill level required: Advanced
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If you want a great 3D software with a strong set of tools and features that is easier to learn than the previous on this list you definitely should take a look at Cinema 4D, as it is easy to use for 3D software and has a great and supportive community that will help you find tutorials and guides to learn to use Cinema 4D.
Thanks to the volumetric modeling tools it’s really easy to get impressive 3D designs at the beginning of using Cinema 4D, regarding the price don’t expect a cheap alternative, as all top 3D software are really expensive, but you can use a 14-day trial to test if this software is what you need.
Best for: All types of 3D designs
Skill level required: Beginner to advanced
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If you are a windows user you can take a look at 3ds Max as it’s a really powerful 3D software only for windows with a professional 3D set giving you the capability to create a huge range of 3D designs.
3ds Max it’s much easier to learn than Maya which is why is more suitable for less experienced 3D designers, and with 3ds Max you can create modeling, fluid simulation, character rigging, animations, and hair and fur. It’s true that the pro package of 3ds Max costs the same as Maya, but you will have a 30-day trial version to see if this software is what you need.
Best for: All types of 3D designs
Skill level required: Beginner to advanced
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As we saw in this post 3D software are really expensive and some of them are hard to learn for beginner 3D designers but don’t worry there is also free 3d software, and the best one is Blender, as it is a really powerful program for 3D content creation and it’s completely free.
If you don’t want to pay for some of the expensive 3d Softwares mentioned earlier, your only serious option is Blender, as it has a full 3D creation suite and due to the fact is open-source it’s free and has regular updates, but this software takes time to learn to be able to use all its tools.
Best for: All types of 3D designs
Skill level required: Beginner to advanced
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Another free 3D software is SketchUp Free, it’s not as complete as Blender but this software is perfect for beginner 3D designers that want to learn the basics of 3d modeling. This software will help you to get introduced in 3D by drawing simple lines and shapes and turn them into 3D.
With this software for 3D modeling, you will obtain really basic results far from professional 3D designs, but you will learn the basics thanks to the large library of free models and easy-to-pick-up and use features.
Best for: Basic 3D designs
Skill level required: Beginner
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Sketch is one of the most popular software among UI designers and if you are in the graphic design industry you have heard about it, and it’s not a surprise as you can make how many changes you want with this UI software.
Sketch has plenty of libraries of symbols, text styles, and layer styles at the same time that it has great tools for resizing and alignments making it the perfect software for prototype design, website ideas, and mobile apps, the only inconvenient is that is only available for Mac users, and if you are thinking on invest on a Mac you can read this post about the best Apple Macs for designers.
Best for: User interface design, prototype and mobile app development.
Skill level required: Beginner to advanced
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If you are looking for an equivalent of a whiteboard with digital elements to create prototypes and sketches for a user interface design you should take a look at InVision Freehand, which is part of the InVision toolset for UI/UX designers.
With this prototyping tool, you can easily sketch, brainstorm ideas, and create mockups with your design team to get the raw idea of your user interface design, and another great fact about this software is that it easily integrates with other design tools and software like Slack, Sketch or Photoshop.
Best for: Freehand drawing and prototyping
Skill level required: Beginner
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If you are a pro UI designer and you are planning complex user interface projects, the best software for you is Axure, as it has been used for a long for designers to build technical UI designs that require dynamic data and other complex functions.
Axure works perfectly for Windows and Mac users giving you a smooth interface with advanced tools and features other UI software don’t have, making it easy to put all your ideas together and test its functionality.
Best for: Complex and technical UI design projects
Skill level required: Intermediate to advanced
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If you have read this post you already have to know that Adobe is the industry standard on graphic design software, and they also have their own program for User Interface design, and it’s called Adobe XD and it’s a great prototyping tool for UI designers.
Adobe XD is a really popular UI design software for prototyping and it’s part of the Adobe Creative Cloud collection for graphic designers. With this software, you can build interactive prototypes and test them directly across different devices, and thanks to its visually pleasing user interface and 3D layer showcasing you can easily modify and edit different layers.
Best for: All types of 3D designs
Skill level required: Beginner to advanced
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Figma is the best all-in-one UI design tool for graphic designers as you can sketch, wireframe, prototype, and manage design systems in the same software, and it’s a great collaborative design tool where multiple people can work on the same project.
Figma is a browser-based UI design software being really easy to use for all the prototyping team including designers, copywriters, and developers. Another cool function of Figma is that you can have users test your project in the research phase and observe the results in real-time.
Best for: UI design projects and Collaborative UI ideas
Skill level required: Beginner to advanced
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If you are an illustrator or digital artist looking for a painting software for iPad Procreate is the best painting app right now, as it is a professional drawing tool for an illustrator in your iPad made for artists and it has become the favorite option for illustrators right now.
Procreate has plenty of brushes and features as QuickShape that helps you create perfect shapes, StreamLine that turns rough strokes into smooth curves, and many more tools at excellent price becoming a must-have app for graphic designers and illustrators in your iPad.
Best for: All types of illustration
Skill level required: Beginner to advanced
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If you are looking for free painting software the best option you have is Krita, as it is an open-source software having great features and tools giving you the best canvas to develop your creativity.
Krita is considered the best free painting software and it’s perfect for comic design and manga artists that is why you can find artists using this software to create concept arts, illustrations, and textures. As this software is open-source you will find plenty of plugins that will make it more professional.
Best for: All types of illustration and digital painting
Skill level required: Beginner to advanced
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Another interesting free drawing software is Autodesk SketchBook, where you will be able to create quick sketches, conceptual art, drawing, and artwork. SketchBook has plenty of different brushes and drawing tools you can customize is a great software for illustrators and artists.
If you want to freeform drawing you should take a look at this software as thanks to its sleek and elegant interface it will offer you a great drawing experience, and the best part is that is free software being an essential software for graphic designers. Another great fact about this drawing software is that is completely compatible with iOS and Android devices.
Best for: Drawing and illustration
Skill level required: Intermediate to advanced
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It depends on the type of graphic designer, for example, a Logo Designer will mostly use Adobe Illustrator and a UI designer will use Sketch, but the most popular graphic design software are Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.
You can start using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to learn how to use these softwares as they are the standard in the graphic design industry, but if you want to start without paying their price you can start using free options as Gravit designer or GIMP.
It highly depends on which area of graphic design you want to focus on, but the most used software by graphic designers are Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to handle raster and vector image designs.
Graphic designers who work with vector files like logo design, icons, or illustrations primarily work with Illustrator, and those who work more with raster files like poster design, photomanipulation, or photo editing use more Photoshop.
Graphic designers do not need to draw to be good graphic designers, instead, you need to create appealing designs using fundamental graphic design elements like lines, shapes, typography, or images, which you can read more about it in this post. Having good drawing skills could give you more possibilities in some kind of design project.
Hope you have found this post useful and it answers your question about which is the best graphic design software for your design projects, and if you want to learn more about graphic design you should read these other posts.
If you found this post useful you might like to read these post about Graphic Design Inspiration.
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