Don’t think you have what it takes to make your own visuals? Well, you’re not alone. We can’t all be the next Pablo Picasso – but everyone can be creative.
Even if you’re not great at choosing harmonious color palettes or matching typefaces, there are plenty of easy-to-use online tools that help you unleash your inner artist. Here are few that I’ve come across that might be beneficial to try out:
1. Canva
Although these tools are listed in no particular order, Canva happens to be a favorite of ours. Not only does it offer you the chance to create your own visuals, they also have their convenient Design School which includes tips and tricks through their blog, as well as free tutorials and teaching material to help you share the love of Canva.
Along with Canva’s free material, there are templates and stock photos that cost $1 to use – but you only have to pay for them when you want to use it. (Yay for no monthly fees!)
Their newly released Canva for Work adds a powerful tool to their arsenal as well. Although it’s not free, (you can choose from a monthly or yearly subscription fee), it’s a viable option for more serious businesses that want to keep their brand on point.
More benefits of Canva:
- Pre-made design layouts (and they’re great about preparing holiday layouts, too)
- Pre-sized templates for common uses (i.e. Facebook Cover Photo, Pinterest Graphic, etc.)
- Saves all of your designs to your Canva account
- You can create templates, save them, and reuse them later
2. Pixlr
Have you ever heard of Adobe Photoshop? Pixlr is basically a simpler (and free) online version of it. With the ability to edit photos and create your own graphics at any size, you can’t go wrong with this tool.
The Pixlr Editor is the main web application, however if you just need to edit a photo or throw text over an image, you can open Pixlr Express and design what you need in minutes!
More benefits of Pixlr:
- Upload your own fonts
- Choose custom image size
- Mobile and desktop app available
- Blog and tutorials available on site
3. Logo Garden
Similar to Canva, Logo Garden is an online tool for designing. The major difference between them is that Logo Garden is solely focused on logo design, rather than full visuals – but that doesn’t mean it is any less valuable!
It’s a great tool for new businesses to get a jump start on their branding. Logo Garden is also great for new logos that you need for specific campaigns and events.
More benefits of Logo Garden:
- Pre-made symbols
- Quickest step-by-step process to designing logos
- Resources on-site to help with logo design and branding
4. Tailor Brands
While this service isn’t free like Logo Garden, Tailor Brands is definitely worth mentioning. The speed at which they can create appealing logos is impressive – and for businesses looking to have a logo created quickly and efficiently, Tailor Brands is the place.
More benefits of Tailor Brands:
- Option to edit their top 6 logo designs
- For additional fees, you can get print material, brand books, and presentations
5. PicMonkey
PicMonkey offers photo editors, graphic design features, and a collage maker. With the free version, you can crop, rotate, resize, and make all kinds of edits to your photos, as well as create original designs.
However, if you need to really edit your photos, you can upgrade to the Royale version for only $4.99/month to unlock more editing features.
More benefits of PicMonkey:
- Templates for new designs
- Themed backgrounds
- Tutorials
- Chrome extension for saving images / taking screenshots
- Uploads all of your fonts from your computer automatically
6. PiktoChart
Infographics are a great way to visualize important information, and have proven to be extremely popular on social media and blogs these days.
If you need to visualize some data or make a quick infographic, getting a free account on Piktochart would be a good decision. However, if you plan on making them more in-depth and creating them often, it’d be worth it to upgrade your account to utilize all that Piktochart has to offer.
More benefits of Piktochart:
- Only $29/month to make limitless graphics
- Over 100 themes
- Templates for Infographics, reports, banners, and presentations
7. PowerPoint
Although it might not have as many features as the aforementioned tools, I wanted to include it on the list. Many people already know the basics of using PowerPoint, so all it takes is learning a few new editing tricks. And the one-time fee is cheaper than four months of Piktochart (if you don’t already have PowerPoint on your computer).
HubSpot has more than a few helpful posts on how to use PowerPoint to create powerful graphics that you can find here.
More Tools
WordSwag, Aviary, and Over are three mobile apps that offer the same tools as the web applications, but for your phone! WordSwag and Over are both wonderful apps to use when creating type-based visuals, and Aviary (recently acquired by Adobe) is like having a mini-Photoshop on your phone.
Whether you’re a business owner or a marketing professional, we understand that you’re extremely busy – and taking the time to sit down at your computer and worry about the quality of your visuals might not be a top priority. Whether you’re on your lunch break or traveling to a meeting, you can whip up a beautiful design with these apps whenever you need to – so we thought they deserved an honorable mention in our list of tools for non-designers.
Now it’s up to you.
You have the list of tools; now it’s time for the fun part – getting to play with all of the apps to find out which one works best for you!
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: The 7 Best Visual Marketing Tools for Non-Designers
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