- Best Program For Graphic Lettering
- Best Program For Graphic Design
- Best Program For Graphic Design For Mac
The Graphic Design Tools You Need. Whether you're a professional-level user or hobbyist, personal computing and graphics software have forever changed the way designers and fine artists work. PixelStyle Photo Editor for Mac is an excellent and all-in-one photo editing and graphic design software which built in a lot of functionalities that are similar to what you can do with Photoshop on Mac to make your photos look a whole lot better. Top 5 Best Free Graphic Design Software for Windows and MAC [[Thanks for watching]] If you liked this video leave a thumbs up! And don't forget to Subscribe for more!! ASK any questions, concerns.
The Graphic Design Tools You Need
Whether you're a professional-level user or hobbyist, personal computing and graphics software have forever changed the way designers and fine artists work. In this roundup, we evaluate several graphics applications that have been in the ring since the beginning. While scores of wannabes have faded away, these programs are still standing. Adobe introduced Illustrator in 1987. In 1989 it released Photoshop, the same year Corel introduced CorelDRAW.
The selections span a variety of needs, from raster and vector image editing to typography to page layout (with InDesign being the primary exponent of the latter). We'll add to this with an even greater variety of additional specialized graphics programs, utilities, and apps.
Software features aside, one of your first decisions in choosing graphics software is how you want to pay: The two Adobe products included here are only available as part of the enormous Creative Cloud subscription suite, while you can get the Corel products for a one-time charge. (That's why the pricing in the table above looks odd.) Inkscape is completely free and open-source, but it forces you to do without some major creature comforts, like easy installation on macOS.
The Right Tools for the Job
Wherever you look, you see graphics of all kinds. The job titles of people who create them are similarly expansive: visual designer, user experience (UX) designer, user interface (UI) designer, information architect, web designer, illustrator, interaction designer, app designer, photo retoucher, animator, surface and pattern designer, type designer, and on and on.
Luckily, we have splendid tools at our disposal, each with its own place in the toolbox. However, as developers expand the software's functionality and as we evolve as designers, those original boundaries become harder to distinguish.
For example, while Photoshop is the go-to photo-editing tool, it also creates awesome photo-realistic text effects. In 1989, no one would probably have guessed that Photoshop would become the favorite front-end web design tool (with nods to Sketch and other capable newcomers). While CorelDRAW's forte is in the production and service bureau industry, you can produce astounding photo-realistic vector art and illustration using blends, gradients, and transparencies. Though Illustrator may not be as accessible as Corel, it endures as the professional vector graphics champ, and learning the program is a sound investment for heavy-use professionals.
Keep experimenting with whatever app or combination of tools you choose. The more creative and curious you are, the more powerful the tool becomes and the more striking and original your designs.
How Did We Do It Without Them?
In the dark ages BC (before computers), producing a color newsletter, for example, was a colossal undertaking that required a team of specialists with expensive equipment. I look back and can't imagine how we managed.
Prior to using software, once a client approved the design (presented as loose sketches and tight comps), we recreated it by drafting the framework of the layout on an illustration board (using a parallel ruler, T square, non-repro blue pencil, and a triangle). Then we had to send our approved copy and written type specifications out for typesetting (via courier to a typesetter who had a phototype machine). Back to us came a strip of photographic paper, which we trimmed, rolled the back of with sticky hot wax, and positioned on the boards in the columns we drafted. For any line art (created with a constantly clogging technical pen, ink, and Pro-White), we had to send out for a photostat that would come back on similar paper as the galley.
If you wanted the art to be tinted, you had to indicate a screen line value for the stat operator. We assigned different spot colors by pasting the physical art on different layers of acetate sheets, which we adhered to the top of the board—in perfect registration. On top of that, we had to adhere a red film, called rubylith, to the acetate and cut the shapes that required masking. Then we sent photo transparencies to the color separator who delivered four pieces of halftone film negatives (CMYK). Of course, the film had to be shot for all the layers composed on the board. Once we annotated our instructions to the offset lithographer, we took the mechanical boards and the large sheets of film to the stripper at the print house, who cut and integrated the film for handing off to the printing plate maker. (Not that kind of stripper.)
The process sounds insane compared with the process and tools we use now and the way we create designs today using the software in this roundup. Now a single person can design a project, send their files to an offset print house where they print the files direct-to-plate, load them on the press, and print. Digital printing is even easier (though I prefer the quality of offset).
Celebrating Choice
Similar to Adobe's suite of Creative Cloud applications is the eight-piece CorelDRAW 2018 Suite. Although our review is specific to the CorelDRAW app itself, it's satisfying to have access to a group of integrated tools between which you can enjoy the productivity of seamless asset interchange and compatibility. Adobe's Creative Cloud is still the industry standard, but it's a snap to export CorelDRAW files to Illustrator (or Photoshop) formats and just as simple to open an Illustrator file in CorelDRAW.
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Each user has different goals, psyches, and abilities, and with this trio of apps, you're sure to discover the tools and process that meet your needs. Ultimately, you should choose the tools with which you feel most proficient—and stay with those that issue timely, purposeful upgrades. It's important that your software encourages your technical growth and challenges you to boost the skills you need in order to keep yourself relevant during today's visual design and interface sea changes.
Where Are We Headed?
In our increasingly digital ecosystem, graphic designers can boost the value of their work if they diversify their skills and broaden their talents. Interface and experience design dominate the job market, and with the booming popularity of smart speakers and digital assistants like Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Cortana, Google's Assistant, and Apple's Siri, we should see a shift to auditory experience design as well.
It's a good thing each of these applications offers tools for designing for multiple screen sizes. CorelDRAW lets you upload directly to WordPress, and layered Photoshop files are the most requested developer hand-off. Even Illustrator CC 2018 has an optimized workspace for web and mobile design with the relatively new pixel preview mode. It also boasts an Export for Screens workflow that generates your assets in different sizes and formats—all in a single action.
What's Not Here—Yet
The waters are teeming with a spectrum of other graphics-producing software—from esoteric niche scripts that only do one thing and hybrids that require light coding, to more mainstream painting, photo-editing, sketching, CAD, and vector programs. Add to that a wave of apps developed specifically for touch-based tablets or mobile devices. There are so many novel design tools out on the horizon and we're looking forward to exploring more of them. Stay tuned!
Best Graphic Design Software Featured in This Roundup:
Adobe Photoshop CC Review
MSRP: $9.99Pros: Multitude of photo correction and manipulation tools. Slick interface with lots of help. Tools for mobile and web design. Rich set of drawing and typography tools. 3D design capability. Synced Libraries.
Cons: No perpetual-license option. Premium assets aren't cheap. Interface can be overwhelming at times. Lacks support for HEIC.
Bottom Line: Adobe continues to improve the world's leading photo editing software. The 2018 edition adds a new auto-select tool, raw camera profiles, loads of font and drawing capabilities, and support for the Microsoft Surface Dial.
Read ReviewAdobe Illustrator CC Review
MSRP: $19.99Pros: Killer vector design abilities. Excellent Touch Type feature. Simplified Free Transform tool. Powerful new Puppet Warp feature allows transformation of select portions of illustrations. Many improvements to existing features.
Cons: Can't buy a single, perpetual license. No uniformity of key commands with Photoshop and InDesign.
Bottom Line: Despite some harrumphing from the digital arts community about Adobe's subscription-only model, Illustrator CC is the best vector-graphics editing program around, and new features make it even better for 2018.
Read ReviewAdobe InDesign CC Review
MSRP: $20.99Pros: Superbly balanced interface. Easy, smart automatic global page adjustment. Contextual information at your fingertips. Huge selection of downloadable fonts.
Cons: Requires subscription. PDF comments integration needs polish.
Bottom Line: InDesign maintains its relevance, giving the commercial creative of 2019 an edge in satisfying ever more-demanding client requests. Despite minor quibbles, InDesign is a must-have for any professional designer.
Read ReviewCorelDraw Graphics Suite 2018 Review
MSRP: $499.00Pros: Capable professional-level features. Fun and easy instant-gratification effects. Highly customizable interface. Unique features. Offers both subscription and outright-purchase sales models.
Cons: Windows-only. Some ease-of-use issues.
Bottom Line: CorelDraw is a powerful, capable graphic design app, one that offers some native capabilities that even Editors' Choice Adobe Illustrator requires plug-ins to replicate.
Read ReviewCorel PaintShop Pro Review
MSRP: $79.99Pros: Photoshop-like features at a lower price. Powerful effects and editing tools. Tutorials. Good assortment of vector drawing tools.
Cons: Interface can get cluttered. Ineffective chromatic aberration removal. No face or object recognition. No Mac version.
Bottom Line: Corel continues to add new photo editing possibilities to its PaintShop Pro software, making it a worthy Photoshop alternative at a budget-conscious, one-time price.
Read ReviewInkscape Review
MSRP: $0.00Pros: Free and full-featured. Cross-platform. Robust community and extension ecosystem. Good placement and path tools. Helpful website.
Cons: Problematic Mac version. Interface visuals need a boost. Steep learning curve. Weak text formatting tools. Poor interoperability with Illustrator.
Bottom Line: Inkscape boasts outstanding features and a passionate user base for a free program, but it's not suitable for busy professionals.
Read Review
Our editors independently research, test, and recommend the best products; you can learn more about our review process here. We may receive commissions on purchases made from our chosen links.
The Rundown
- Best Overall:SketchUp Pro at Sketchup.com, “Unquestionably the best home design software out there.”
- Best Budget: Total 3D Home, Landscape & Deck Premium Suite at Amazon, 'Upload your own sketches or choose from 14,000 samples to get your planning started.'
- Best for DIY Home Enthusiasts:Home Designer Professional at Amazon, “The best thing for DIY home enthusiasts.”
- Best for Ease of Use:Sweet Home 3D at Amazon, “You can create straight, round or sloping walls with precise dimensions, with just your mouse and keyboard.”
- Best for Landscaping:HGTV Home and Landscape Platinum at Amazon, “Provides an easy way to plan your home's outdoor surroundings, exactly how you want them.”
- Best Online:Space Designer 3D at Spacedesigner3d.com, “A web-based app that lets you plan and visualize your ideal home, using just your Web browser.”
- Best for Mobile:Homestyler at Homestyler.com, “Homestyler is a free app, and available on both iOS and Android mobile platforms.”
- Best Splurge:Chief Architect Premium at Chiefarchitect.com, “If budget isn't a concern, it's the best that there is, period.”
Our Top Picks
Best Overall: SketchUp Pro
With its expansive feature set, advanced 3D modeling tools and online forums having everything from tutorials to discussions, SketchUp Pro is unquestionably the best home design software out there.
SketchUp Pro lets you effortlessly design highly accurate (to a thousandth of an inch) 3D models of homes (and other similar structures), all using simple click-and-release mouse actions. Just choose from one of the many preloaded templates, select a view and you're ready to go. In addition to 3D models, you can also create plans, elevations, details, title blocks and a lot more, using the 'LayOut' tool. It's also great for making presentation documents, supporting everything from drafting to vector illustrations. The program makes it easy to turn models into animated walkthroughs and flyovers that explain every detail. You can also add elements such as line work, textures and shadows to 2D documents. Then there are the dimensioning tools, which snap to the edges of models and allow you to quickly set format, scale and precision level of displayed measurements. From architects and builders to engineers and urban planners, SketchUp can be used by everyone. The created design documents can be exported as PDFs, images and CAD files.
One of the most impressive features of SketchUp Pro is 3D Warehouse, a huge library of free 3D models. You can choose from a vast array of 3D objects, and use them in your home's design.
Best Budget: Total 3D Home, Landscape & Deck Premium Suite
Teeming with options, the Home, Landscape & Deck Premium Suite software from Total 3D offers nearly boundless room for creativity while designing rooms and gardens. You can upload your own sketches of your dream home or choose from 14,000 samples to get your planning started. To see how your own furniture would look in different designs, you can import digital images of your current pieces and textiles or utilize a catalog of 20,000 brand-name products. Visualize nearly any possibility with custom windows, doors, floors, carpets, roofs, appliances, paint colors, and wallpaper. A how-to video library offers step-by-step instructions for navigating the software, and over 2,500 photos of homes and landscapes can provide inspiration or guidance.
Best Program For Graphic Design
Best for DIY Home Enthusiasts: Home Designer Professional
Don't want to bother hiring an architect and would rather design your perfect home yourself? Look no further than Home Designer Professional, the best thing for DIY home enthusiasts.
Coming from the stable of Chief Architect, Home Designer Professional offers a truckload of tools for interior design, remodeling, outdoor living and cost estimation. These have commonly accepted defaults for most building practices, and thus make creating your own project a cakewalk. Whether you want to create a single room or an entire house, Home Designer Professional can do it all. It lets you add cabinets, place furniture and even paint walls.
The software has an extensive library of 3D architecture objects that can be added to designs. You can rotate symbols in different planes, and choose to have the CAD block refresh automatically as objects are modified. It's possible to set heights by absolute or relative positions, and the program lets you reference adjacent floors for designing multi-tiered decks. You can customize room labels, edit multiple elements (e.g. all cabinets) together with one command, as well as create architectural blocks that can be moved as one and stored in the library. Other features include the ability to rotate and reverse plans, custom watermarks, live layout views and labeled callouts.
Home Designer Professional lets you backup the entire plan for easy sharing, set sun and shadow controls, record walkthroughs and more. There is a lot of CAD functionality thrown into the mix, too.
Best for Ease Of Use: Sweet Home 3D
Most of the home design programs are quite complicated and have a bit of a learning curve. That said, there are some that are fairly easy to use, and Sweet Home 3D is the best among them.
Using Sweet Home 3D, you can create straight, round or sloping walls with precise dimensions, with just your mouse and keyboard. The software lets you insert doors and windows in walls by simply dragging them in the plan. You can add furniture to your model using an extensive, searchable catalog, which is organized by categories such as kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom. For each added element (e.g. wall, floor), it's possible to change the color, texture, size, thickness, location and orientation. While designing the home in 3D, you can simultaneously view it in 3D from an aerial point of view, or navigate from a virtual visitor point of view. Sweet Home 3D lets you annotate the plan with room areas, dimension lines, texts and arrows. The program can even create photorealistic images and videos with its ability to customize the lights. You can import existing home blueprints to add upon them, and export created designs as PDFs and vector images.
The features of Sweet Home 3D can be enhanced using a variety of plug-ins. The program runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and Solaris.
Best for Landscaping: HGTV Home & Landscape Platinum Suite
There's no point in having the perfect home if it's not surrounded by plants and other forms of greenery. Landscaping is just as important (if not more), and to visualize it, you need a software that puts special emphasis on this crucial aspect of home design. Enter HGTV Home & Landscape Platinum Suite.
HGTV Home & Landscape Platinum Suite provides an easy way to plan your home's outdoor surroundings, exactly how you want them. From pathways and plants to decks and gazebos, you can customize anything and everything. The deck builder wizard makes it easy to create a new deck or patio, which can be then spruced up with plants, fences and much more.
Speaking of, HGTV's plant encyclopedia has reference information for more than 7,500 trees, plants, flowers, shrubs and groundcover options. It also contains information about the plants' light, water and soil requirements. For garden design, HGTV Home & Landscape Platinum Suite lets you add lighting to flowerbeds and pathways, and even insert pop-up sprinklers with varying spray ranges. You can scan digital photos of your yard to easily add garden design elements to them, and take a 3D tour it once done.
It's worth mentioning that HGTV lets you design home interiors too, and comes with many powerful design tools for the same.
Best Online: Space Designer 3D
If you think only desktop programs are great for home design, you couldn't be more wrong. Space Designer 3D is a web-based app that lets you plan and visualize your ideal home, using just your Web browser.
Getting started with Space Designer 3D is a walk in the park, and all you need is an account. The app lets you draw floor plans from basements to the roofs, and you can customize your interior design with more than 5,000 different furniture and materials, suitable for both residential and commercial use. The Web app makes it simple to visualize your created project in real-time, both in 2D and 3D. Space Designer 3D can simulate natural lighting realistically, depending upon the GPS coordinates and time of the day. Its rendering engine can transform 3D objects into photorealistic images with just a click, and levels are editable independently through the 2D floor plan visualization. It's possible to have multiple options for the design of the floor plan or interiors, which is why Space Designer 3D includes different versions of a single project, with the ability to quickly switch between multiple designs.
Space Designer 3D offers multiple plans, and you can choose the one that best suits your (or your organization's) needs.
Best for Mobile: Homestyler
Want to get some home planning done when you're on the move? There's no need to lug around a laptop, as your smartphone will do just fine. Just install Homestyler, and get started.
A powerful home design app, Homestyler offers a myriad of features. Simply take a photo of your space, and try out multiple wall colors, decor items and furniture products from actual brands. You cannot only place high-quality 3D models of different items in the virtual room but even hang light fixtures from the ceiling. The app makes it exceedingly simple to visualize different product combinations, and lets you see how realistic models of branded rugs, paintings, mirrors and more will look in your space. Since Homestyler is a community-based app, you can browse the designs submitted by other users to get some inspiration. Of course, you can also post your own creations and share them via e-mail and Facebook.
Homestyler is a free app, and available on both iOS and Android mobile platforms.
Best Splurge: Chief Architect Premier
Primarily geared towards professional architects and home planners, Chief Architect Premier is arguably the most comprehensive home design software you're going to come across. If budget isn't a concern, it's the best that there is, period.
Chief Architect Premier is fully capable of handling all types of residential and light commercial design projects. As you draw elements (e.g. walls), the software automatically creates a 3D model. It can generate a list of materials and use powerful building tools to produce construction documents, complete with site and framing plans, section details and elevations. Chief Architect Premier's 3D rendering and visualization features let you view created models from different angles. You can also explore 360-degree spherical views locally and in the cloud, as well as embed them in websites for interactive navigation. For cross sections and elevations, the software can add automatic labels and populate camera callouts with layout information. With nearly unlimited options for everything from rooms and walls to foundations and even electrical/HVAC systems, Chief Design Premier lets you make the most intricate home designs, with minimal effort.
Best Program For Graphic Design For Mac
The software has a vast catalog of 3D objects and lets you export/export data in a wide variety of formats. Chief Architect Premier is available for both PC and Mac.