12 Best Tools for Web and Graphic Designer

If we talk about graphic and web designers, especially the ones who work on a day-to-day basis to hone their productivity skills, they are looking to get things done fast! Top it off with a predicament very much aligned with freelancing/sole proprietorship business and you are looking at people who don’t have much time to spare. Entrepreneurs can relate to the dilemma.

Therefore, we came up with this write-up where we get to talk about various tools and apps that have been known to help web and graphic designers with their work. That being said, this list is not conclusive. We just handpicked a few popular applications to get the conversation started. If you are looking to suggest something, feel free to use the comments section below after you’re done reading this piece.

Best Tools for Web and Graphics Designers:

If a designer uses a handful of tools, it will give a solid foundation for communicating the ideas and simplifying the work. So, in the journey to move from a good designer to the best one, all you have to do is have a set of tools with you.

Here’s a list of some of the best tools and apps to give you a head start in your online ventures. Some of the applications are not entirely web designing/graphic designing centric, but they are equally important because of their ability to help users multitask and keep up with their rapid workflow.

1. Photoshop – Enhance Your Digital Work Like a Pro!

Everyone has used Photoshop by now. If you have used the program, at least you have heard of it. How could you not? It is hard to miss the slightest mention of Photoshop when we see celebrity pictures floating around at social media websites, and people commenting underneath, “Oh he/she looks so perfect and blemish-free. It has to be Photoshopped.”

That being said, Photoshop is considered a very efficient graphic designing tool. Here are some of the key highlights of the program that make it worthwhile.

Key Features:

• It helps to change the skin tone, create a high-resolution copy of the photo, adjusting brightness or removing a blurred area in just a few clicks by using adobe Photoshop.
• The additional advantages of using Photoshop include the fact those who utilize it to enhance or expand and strengthen his or her editing skills.
• It does a lot more than image editing. Adobe’s CC Suite has a collection of various other tools that enable graphics and web designers, both, to showcase their work at full potential.
• It is a wonderful way to learn and remember useful artist gimmickry.
• It speeds up your design process
• Brings your ideas to life.

2. Filestage:

Do you hate it when there is no consistency or transparency in the review process, and everything is spread over different tools and channels?

Without it, you can’t be sure that every file has been through a consistent process of checks and approvals. Filestage enables you to build and manage review processes the way you want to. Collect feedback from all reviewers in one place and ensure all files go through a consistent process.

Projects move faster when you’re not stuck chasing people for feedback or wading through your inbox. But getting stakeholders to review different file types via email is complicated.

Filestage makes it easy for teammates and stakeholders to give feedback on file types, eliminating the need for long email threads.

3. ProofHub – Proofing Tool:

It is one place for all your projects and team collaboration. ProofHub is useful in the following ways.

Key Features:

• It has all the tools for individual and team members.
• It has ultimate control over teams and projects; easier done than said!
• On-time project delivery & on-point team accountability.
• It is very easy-to-understand with little to no learning curve.

Pricing:

• All thanks to a friendly fixed pricing plan, ProofHub has no per-user fee.

4. DesignBold:

DesignBold is designed for the creatives both professional and amateur. It is developed with an eye-catching interface for creating printed or digital images quickly and smoothly. With an intuitive and robust feature-set, even beginners can create graphics, documents, and images of professional quality.

If it is your first time using DesignBold, you can surf through YouTube videos to get a hang of what the program has to offer. It doesn’t matter if you are a graphics designer, a digital artist or a web designer. There is something in there for everyone; that’s how the Devs created DesignBold in the first place.

Key Features:

• For users with no idea where to start, DesignBold offers thousands of templates for you to edit and overlay your designs.
• You can utilize them for presentations, for infographics, Instagram posts, or invitations.
• Regardless, the software has it all. What’s more, editing is also easy with the interface’s drag-and-drop commands.

5. Illustrator (*Also Known as Adobe Illustrator) – Create Logos, Icons and Sketches:

Illustrator is one of the best tools to date. Especially when you talk about using Vector images over conventional rasterized images, Illustrator takes it all to the next level. And trust me, Vector digital media is the latest trend. No one wants to see their images getting bombarded with pixels when they zoom in.

It has an intuitive user interface. Initially, it is a little hard to get a hang of things, but you will eventually get there with enough practice. Some of the additional features of this application are highlighted below:

Key Features:

• It allows for in-panel editing.
• It is completely scalable.
• It creates files in manageable sizes.
• It works on almost any computer system.
• It creates print graphics and web graphics.

6. Sketch 3 – Graphic App:

Non-relevant functions do – not exist, so you only have buttons for stuff useful for web/app design. That’s what Sketch 3 and its predecessors are all about. They wanted to create something for users that’s not only clutter-free but also easy to use at the same time.

You don’t have the plethora of actions that you’ll have in Illustrator because you don’t need it.

Key Features:

• UI work is full of repetitions — colors, shapes, icons, patterns are reused again and again. The ability to have symbols and some responsive abilities is a godsend, it removes most of the boring part of UI work. It’s industrializing it.
• Figma does it even better, but Sketch makes it possible to work with other people on the same file (with pattern libraries, or using version control plugins like Abstract or Plant)
• It’s way cheaper 😀 Sketch is something like $100 a year.-

7. Marvel – Prototyping Tool:

Next up, we got Marvel Prototyping Tool. Of course, just like you, I wish it had something to do with official Marvel Comics Company, or the Avengers to say the least, but this program is something not related to the aforementioned entities.

Marvel Prototyping is an essential tool for web design workflow these days. With Marvel, you can create anything from scratch, sync designs from your cloud storage! Sketch.

Key Features:

• Design with Marvel Canvas. Prototype and add gestures and transitions to your design.
• Marvel is a very highly simplified interface that makes it fast and easy to learn.
• The tool works well for both non-designers and advanced UX folks.

8. Sublime Text – Text Editor:

Sublime text is the text editor that you are surely going to fall in love with. Sublime Text 2 is a minimalist coding editor that will let you focus completely on your code.

If you are working on websites, this will give your great power providing powerful shortcuts and tools to leap about a document, filter the file, and quickly make edits.

9. Webflow – Responsive Web Design Tool:

Webflow allows designers to create sites in a relatively short time period. You can design and develop at the same time, with minimal effort with Webflow.

Don’t worry about using coding to execute your work output. You can easily export and change the site’s HTML / CSS tags according to the customer’s needs.

10. Github – Software Development Platform:

Github is a very handy tool for Web Designers and website developers. That does not mean that GitHub doesn’t have anything for graphic designers. It does, but the abundance of “graphics” is not as much as compared to traditional Web 2.0 and 3.0 properties.

GitHub is a directory. Some people call it a repository. It’s your choice though. The crux of the tool is in its ability to offer a platform to hardcore coding communities where people can ask technical questions related to real-life use case scenarios and other experts answer them in comments format.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

In addition, GitHub can integrate with common platforms such as Amazon and Google Cloud, services such as Code Climate to track your feedback, and can highlight syntax in over 200 different programming languages.

11. Milanote – Visual Boards To Get Organized

Milanote is a tool for organizing creative projects into beautiful visual boards. By design, it feels a lot like working on the wall in a creative studio – visual, tactile and sometimes a bit messy – Milanote is a great fit for designers who work in teams remotely.

Key Features:

• Write notes & to-do lists, upload images & files and save things you find on the web
• Organize visually using the flexible drag and drop interface.
• Boards by default are a private place to think, but with a single click you can create a shared workspace for collaboration with your team
• Milanote is filled with hundreds of built-in templates to help you get started with a variety of different projects, from creating a mood board to writing that perfect creative brief.

Pricing:

• Free version available with no time limit.
• PRO version $9.99 per month (monthly and annual plans)

12. Instasize – Photo Editing Tool

Having a multi-purpose editing app on-hand is key to making the most of any raw photos you use for digital marketing. Instasize is one of the most reliable out there, capable of applying essential post-processing to both photos and videos. It’s available for mobile phones and great for designers on the go.

Features:

• Crop and resize photos and trim videos as you please

• A wide array of filters, text styles, and borders

• Monthly updates provide new, themed editing packs

• User-friendly UI that makes editing a breeze

Pricing:

• Free basic plan
• Premium plan at $4.99/month

Conclusion:

Since this list is not conclusive, we know for a fact that there are tons of tools that are not mentioned here. If you have a personal favorite app that you’d like to share with web and graphic designers on the internet, go ahead and use the comments section below. You can also write to us at fwilson@ntaskmanager.com for anonymous tips.