The best graphic design software

August 24, 2024
33 min read

Choosing the best graphic design software can make all the difference, speeding up complex or time-consuming tasks and expanding creative possibilities. The field of graphic design is now so broad, from logos and posters to digital assets, that many designers now need more than one program, and there’s no shortage of contenders.

We’ve been testing and reviewing creative software for more than a decade, so we’ve seen how programs have advanced, most recently with the addition of AI-powered features. Based on that knowledge and experience, we’ve drawn up the list below of the best graphic design software today, ranging from industry-standard tools like Adobe Illustrator to newer competitors, free graphic design software and programs for more specific niches.

The logo of Adobe Illustrator, one of the best graphic design software programs Vector editor

The logo of Adobe Photoshop, one of the best graphic design software programs Image editor

The logo of Affinity Designer, one of the best graphic design programs Subscription-free

The logo of Autodesk Maya, one of the best graphic design software programs 3D software

The logo of Adobe Express, one of the best graphic design software programs For social

UI design

Why you can trust Creative Bloq
Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.

If you want the best graphic design software for vector drawing and editing, then really you’ll want Adobe Illustrator. We’d love to be able to say that there’s a cheaper alternative without a subscription, but even in 2024 regular updates continue to keep Illustrator ahead of the growing competition in terms of features and tools, ensuring it remains the industry-standard software. Basically, if you’re working for anyone other than yourself, this is the graphic design program you’ll probably be expected to use for vector design work.

Illustrator allows you to create everything from illustrations to logos with a lot of creative freedom. It also has a lot of useful features and shortcuts to help speed up your workflow. The learning curve is fairly steep initially, but we think that once you know your way around the program, it offers a pleasant interface to use. We continue to be impressed with the latest updates Adobe has made, including powerful Firefly AI-driven tools like text-to-vector, text-to-pattern and Generative Shape Fill, which can save so much time.

The only downside we can see really is that Illustrator is only available via a monthly subscription, either alone or as part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud Suite, which includes Photoshop, InDesign and more. This has its advantages in that you automatically get the latest updates, but it does makes Illustrator a lot more expensive than other programs in the long term. It’s best to sign up when there’s an offer to at least get a discount for your first year. There’s also a discount for students. See our full hands-on Adobe Illustrator 2024 review for more details, and see our guide to how to download Adobe Illustrator.

If you’re put off by the hefty monthly or annual cost of Adobe’s subscription model, there are now some serious alternatives as the best graphic design software for vector design. The most notable contender is Serif’s Affinity Designer. Available for a one-off payment, Affinity Designer comes closest out of all the software we’ve tried in matching the breadth of Illustrator’s feature set.

In fact, Affinity Designer even offers some tools you don’t get on Illustrator, such as infinite redos and one million per cent-plus zoom, and we found that it tends to run faster than Adobe illustrator too. It can handle both Illustrator AI and Photoshop PSD files, so you don’t have to worry about compatibility if colleagues or clients work with Adobe’s software. But the best part, of course, is that you only have to make a one-time payment, and a fairly reasonable one at that. There are no subscription fees, but you still get software updates when they’re released, making it a lot more affordable in the long term, or even medium term.

If you’re looking for the best graphic design software specifically for UI design, prototyping and/or making icons, then you might want to consider Figma. It can actually be used for vector work for things like logos, using the Pen and grid feature, and some might even find it easier than Illustrator for this, although it doesn’t have anywhere near the range of tools of Illustrator and doesn’t support CMYK colour for print.

But while it doesn’t have the depth of software like Adobe Illustrator or Affinity Designer for general vector work, it comes into its own for UI design due to its excellent collaboration features, which allow whole teams to work through the process from ideation to handoff. There are tools like auto Layout for dynamic, flex-based layouts), and the software is available for Windows, macOS and in your browser.

Once the market leader in vector design, CorelDRAW lost some of its popularity to Adobe Illustrator, but it still has legions of loyal fans and it continues to upgrade its offering to keep up with most of the features offered by competitors. It’s now available in three formats: CorelDRAW Essentials for those who only need basic tools for occasional design needs, CorelDRAW Standard for enthusiasts and small businesses and the more complete CorelDRAW Graphics Suite for professional designers.

There are plenty of new features in the latest edition too. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2024 has added compatibility with the AI app Vision FX. This plugin allows users to use text prompts to generate images. We’d recommend taking out the free trial to see how you find it. If you do opt for Corel, the good news is that there’s no issue with importing and exporting AI, PSD and PDF files. See our full CorelDRAW review for a more detailed evaluation.

Available online and as a mobile app for both iOS and Android, Adobe Express aims to do a bit of everything, from AI image generation to logos, graphic design for social media posts and even video editing, at a level that’s accessible for non-designers. Its strengths are several. Firstly, the most basic features are free, although you’ll need to subscribe if you want all of the tools. Secondly, the broad range of tools included means that individuals or small businesses might be able to find everything they need in one place, avoiding the need for more complex or specialist software.

There’s a wide range of editable templates and stock assets, which can be useful for users who don’t have the time, skills or resources to develop more bespoke design but want to put a wide variety of options for putting text on backgrounds or images for social media posts. That said, the range of tools available in Adobe Express is limited, and it’s not the software to choose if you’re looking for the freedom to create bespoke designs. See our Adobe Creative Cloud Express review for more details.

SVG-Edit is the best free graphic design software for quick vector jobs. The open-source browser-based app lets you edit and create SVG files using a standard vector toolset. There’s nothing to download, as the software works straight in your web browser in an intuitive, if retro-looking interface. It doesn’t have a big range of advanced tools, but then that’s not the idea. For simple vectors, or even slightly more detailed ones, it’ll do the job just fine. And best of all, it’s genuinely completely free. The repository is on GitHub.

VectorStyler is a relative newcomer among the best vector software. Initially available only for Mac, it’s now available for Windows too. Its big selling point is a wide range of scalable vector brushes plus the inclusion of some of the tools that are missing in other alternatives to Adobe Illustrator, such as shape builder, a blend tool and pattern tool. It can open and import Illustrator files, and you can import AI brush collections as well as create vector brushes from artwork and dynamically link brush content to editable artwork.

We found the user interface to be very easy to understand, and tools like the warp options are very intuitive. However, while we found some of the unique filters and tools interesting, VectorStyler is twice the price of Affinity Designer, our top pick as the best non-subscription vector software. It does offer some of the tools that Affinity Designer lacks, so it’s worth considering if you need them, but we find it’s usually possible to find a workaround.

Another downside is that unlike Adobe Illustrator and Affinity Designer, you don’t have that wider ecosystem that lets you switch quickly and easily between different apps (with Affinity you have that in Affinity Photo, Publisher and Designer). While VectorStyle can do a lot, it doesn’t have the pixel tools that you get with Affinity and Photoshop. There’s also no iPad app, a big advantage of Illustrator and Affinity Designer for graphic designers who work on the go or with a stylus.

Vecteezy is another in-browser vector editor. If offers a ton of free ready-made vectors that you can customise. However, to use the full feature set including the vector editor to build your own designs from scratch, you’ll need a subscription, which started at a reasonable $3.60 a month at the time of writing. It’s easy to use and has some nice features such as advanced transformations and keyboard shortcuts. See more about how it works in our guide to how to use Vecteezy.

Again, being a browser-based platform, it has certain limitations. Obviously you need a stable internet connection, and the lack of CTRL Z support can be frustrating for undoing things. Simple animations work like a dream but anything more complex, like nesting shapes, repeating animations or moving multiple shapes can become a long-winded. You have to pay for the Pro version, but that should be worth it if you’re doing a lot of small animations.

You probably don’t need us to tell you that Adobe’s Photoshop is the industry-standard software for image editing. The package has long been a household name and just as Illustrator remains the best graphic design software for vector work thanks to its regular updates, Photoshop continues to dominate in image editing. It can do a lot more than just image editing, too: everything from touching up photos to digital drawing and painting, 3D modelling and UX design. It’s a fully featured package, and Adobe’s been adding powerful AI tools under its Adobe Firefly and Sensei banners to allow you to do things like remove backgrounds in just a couple of clicks, and even generate new ones and fill in images with generative fill and expand features.

As with Illustrator, you’ll need a subscription, but then if you’re a working designer a subscription to Creative Cloud is almost a must, granting you access to Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and more. As with all Creative Cloud tools, you get regular updates for free. See our full Photoshop 2024 review for more details. For help understanding the different payment options, see our article on How to download Photoshop.

Again, if you don’t want the regular cost of a subscription, the best option comes from Serif’s Affinity series. Affinity Photo is available for a very reasonable one-off payment for the desktop app, and a separate payment for the iPad app, and it offers a close match for most of Photoshop’s features, it has all the photo retouching tools most people need, as well as advanced painting tools with a huge library of brushes. You can import and export PSD files and even smart objects. Users get updates for free, with the latest big revamp in 2023 (2.0) adding numerous new features.

Both Photoshop and Affinity Photo are now available for the iPad. But if all you need is a set of drawing tools, without a bunch of design-related extras, Procreate’s probably the best graphic design software for you. Procreate has a great reputation within the artist community, and for good reason. It offers lots of beautiful brushes and helpful tools, such as QuickShape, which give you perfect shapes every time, and StreamLine, for turning your rough strokes into smooth curves. You can even paint filters straight onto your canvas.

Even the best free graphic design software can’t really come close to Photoshop’s abilities. but, despite the offputting name, GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) does a very good job. By default, the interface is kind of clunky, but it’s easy to update it to a more Adobe-style feel. Either way, GIMP contains a lot of powerful design tools. You’ll be able to work with all the popular file formats without trouble. And you’ll find a very capable file manager built in, along similar lines to Adobe’s Bridge. See our full GIMP review for more details.

Krita is a free and open-source painting tool that’s been around since 1999. It’s popular in the VFX industry and with concept artists, illustrators, matte and texture artists. It’s famous for its huge collection of brushes, as well as brush stabilisers for smoothing out shaky lines. And if you want to tweak things further, there are loads of plugins available, ranging from advanced filters to painting assistants for perspective work. When we reviewed Krita version 5.0 in 2022, we found that it’s stability had been much approved and doesn’t suck up resources like it could in the past. Also see our Krita tutorial.

Canva is also more than an image editor, it’s fully fledged graphic design software featuring a colour palette tool, font combination picker, a photo collage maker, and more. There’s even a dedicated infographic maker (see our guide to the best infographic makers for more options there). While it doesn’t quite match all the abilities of Photoshop, Canva is pretty impressive for a free app. You can use it in the browser for the full experience, but most of its tools are also available for both Android and iOS.

The paid version, Canva Pro, also has some interesting features. When we reviewed it, we liked Canva Pro’s Brand Kit, which could be a useful feature to help small companies stay on-brand across their designs, allowing you to set pre-set brand fonts, logos, colours and pre-designed templates. We also found the resize and the background remover tools very easy to use, and perfect for those with little experience of using design software. See our full Canva review for more details.

Pixlr Express is a quick-and-easy AI photo editing tool proving one-click edits and artistic effects. Pixlr E is a more substantial image editing app with more complete tools, and Pixlr BG is an AI-powered tool designed to remove the backgrounds from photos. There’s also now Pixlr Designer which provides templates for animated images. It’s taken on some of the Canva and Adobe Express approach here, focusing on quick options for people looking to make social media posts.

Autodesk Maya is the best graphic design software for 3D work, and is commonly used across the industry, right up to top studios like Pixar or Framestore. It contains huge range of tools and features covering pretty much the entire 3D workflow, from modelling through to rendering and animation. Be warned, though, the price and the time it’ll take you to learn will be off-putting to anyone who’s not well-versed in 3D. However, if you’re a student or educator, you can sign up for free educational access to the Autodesk range. See our full Maya 2024 review.

The software features volumetric modelling tools that make it easier to get impressive results when you’re starting out, as well as a full-featured parametric modelling toolset and the ability to extend its functionality with plugins. It plays nicely with many Adobe tools, most strikingly After Effects. And as its maker Maxon is in the process of acquiring Zbrush, we expect there’ll be some nice integrations there soon, too.

Another industry standard tool, 3ds Max is a Windows-only app with a powerful set of features. Easier to learn than Maya, but no less capable, it features modelling, fluid simulation, hair and fur, and pretty much everything you need for character rigging and animation. There’s a 30-day trial version available, and you can use the software for free if you’re in education. Read our full 3ds Max review and read our selection of 3ds Max tutorials for more details.

Blender is hands-down the best free graphic design software for 3D work. Free and open source, it’s a full 3D content creation suite with a hugely impressive stack of tools. Its makers are constantly working on its development, and you can pretty much do anything 3D related with this software, including modelling, texturing, animation, rendering and compositing. Although it’s not widely used at the top level of the industry, a number of major films have been made with it, including Netflix’s Next Gen. For more details, read our full Blender review and our collection of Blender tutorials.

Daz Studio is a 3D figure customisation, posing and animation tool that enables artists of all skill levels to create digital art using virtual people, animals, props, vehicles, accessories and environments. It allows you to create custom 3D characters and avatars, design virtual environments, produce graphic design elements and much more – making it one of the best graphic design software choices out there.

If you want to get a feel for digital sculpting, Pixologic’s ZBrushCoreMini is a fantastic starting point. If you’re a 3D pro, meanwhile, you’ll find it a quick and easy tool for banging out concepts. ZBrushCoreMini is based on Pixologic’s ZBrush, the most widely-used digital sculpting application in today’s market. So, when you’re ready to move on to the next level, skills learned here can be directly translated into ZBrush. Note that this 3D software is free for non-commercial use only.

Infogram is a useful free tool for creating graphs, charts and maps, with the added bonus of adding images and videos if you want to create engaging infographics. You can arrange your data in a simple spreadsheet that you can then edit to see the results in real time. And when you’re satisfied with the result you can publish it to the Infogram website to embed it on your own site, or share via social media. Also see our guide to the best infographic maker.

We’ll then put functionality and feature sets to the test across common design tasks like illustration, photo editing, and layout design, to ensure it actually works in practice and delivers what it promises. We’ll also pay attention to compatibility with various operating systems and hardware configurations; performance, including speed and responsiveness; and the availability of support resources, such as tutorials and customer service.

What software do graphic designers use?

For most working graphic designers, Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite of apps is the standard choice. Its main tools for graphic design are Photoshop (raster image editing), Illustrator (vector image editing), InDesign (desktop publishing) and After Effects (motion design). You can subscribe to the Creative Cloud suite as a whole, or take out a single-app subscription. Either way, you’ll also get the Behance portfolio service and access to Adobe Fonts. See our guide to getting a Creative Cloud discount to make sure you find the best price.

For graphic designers on a budget, Affinity’s suite of apps provide a close approximation to Adobe’s tools, namely Affinity Photo (which rivals Photoshop), Affinity Designer (which rivals Illustator) and Affinity Publisher (which rivals InDesign). There is no equivalent, however, to After Effects.

What’s the best graphic design software for beginners?

If you’re new to graphic design, there are a number of apps that allow you to get started for free. One of our top recommendations is Canva, a lightweight app for making quick designs in your browser. You don’t need to download anything, and you don’t have to pay either, unless you want to unlock advanced features and extra resources.

While you learn graphic design theory, Canva will allow you to put it into practice. Once you’ve reached a certain level of expertise, you’ll then naturally gravitate towards one of the paid apps on our list to get more sophisticated tools.

Is the best free graphic design software any good?

Logically, most of the best graphic design software has a cost since developing and updating the programs requires investment. If you’re working as a professional designer, or hoping to, then you’ll almost certainly want to invest in the best graphic design software overall.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to subscribe to Adobe’s Creative Cloud since there are now many competitive subscription-free alternatives, but you’re likely to find that agencies and even direct clients may expect you to use Illustrator and Photoshop (some may even have a preference for other software).

However, the best free graphic design software is worth considering if you’re just starting out or only need to create occasional design work for personal projects. There are completely free open-source programs like the free vector software SVG Edit and Inkscape and the image-editing software GIMP that may offer you everything you need depending on your requirements. Their interfaces may look a little more rustic but they do the job for a lot of creative tasks.

What computer do I need to run graphic design software

When it comes to system requirements, it should be possible to run most software for static graphic design on most modern laptops as long as the corresponding operating system is supported. We would recommend ensuring your device has at least 8GB of RAM, and 16GB would be more ideal for the smoothest experience if you work with lots of layers with more fully-featured software like Illustrator or Photoshop.

Software for motion design and 3D design can be more demanding, and in some cases you may require a device with a dedicated GPU for the best experience. For recommendations in terms of hardware, see our pick of the best laptops for graphic design. We also have a guide to the best graphics cards for video editing.

Source link

Add Your Comment

The best graphic design software

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Search

Recent Post

Simon Schama on the pleasure-giving, life-affirming art

Judge reserves decision following judicial review hearing

Anderson’s Soiree festival will highlight fine art,

Costly painting mistakes I regret – here’s

From Wall to Screen: How Digital Art

‘Masterful’ painting by famous Scottish artist to

Not just art, but social change

Stay In Touch

Follow us

The best graphic design software

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Search

Recent Post

Stay In Touch

Related Posts

Follow us