3 free design tools

When we talk about design tools we often think of the bigger, more expensive programs. Names like Adobe and Affinity Designer come to mind quickly.

Those programs are very good, but steep learning curves and high prices make it hard for people new to design to learn them. Over time the alternatives on the market have become far broader, and more and more competitive programs are starting to challenge the biggest players we know. In this article you will find our recommendations for what we think are the best free tools available right now.

Canva is a design program offering a wide range of tools that let you easily create designs for everything from social media posts and book covers to infographics, t-shirts and much more. At Link Utvikling we mainly use Canva for organising and posting on social media.

Canva has very good social media integration that lets us post directly from Canva to the different channels. It is also very easy to set up project folders we can share with the rest of the team, which lets us all go in and edit the various projects together.

- Usability. The program is very easy to learn, with a good interface and simple but effective design features.

- Social media compatibility. As well as being able to post directly to social media from Canva, the tools are extremely well suited to making good-looking, visually appealing illustrations for social channels.

- A wide selection of templates. Canva stays up to date on trends within its different audiences and makes sure templates are available for most of what you might need them for.

- Premium features. Canva is a free tool, but it also has paid plans (Canva Pro). At times it can unfortunately feel limiting not to have access to everything.

If you want to try your hand at graphic design, Figma is the tool for you. Figma offers a range of tools that let you easily craft everything from your ideal logo to web design, icons, illustrations and more. The Figma community page lets you explore plugins, templates and widgets that can help with your design.

In its free version Figma offers unlimited storage of drafts. That is unusual for free versions of tools like this and can be very helpful for those of us who like to keep a few files around.

- Unlimited file storage in the free version. When it comes to storage space, the free version of Figma offers more than several of the larger paid design programs.

- The Figma community page. The community page is a hub where designers share their clever solutions to help other Figma users.

- Can be used across platforms. In the free version it is still possible to use the same Figma project on phone and computer.

- Limited sharing in the free version. In the free version the number of projects you can share with others is limited. For those with many projects and collaborators that can become a challenge.

- Administration and security costs. Many of the security features Figma has implemented only become available once you upgrade to their second most expensive plan at 45 dollars a year.

GIMP is a free, open source program for graphic design. That means that as well as being free, users get the right to go in and change the source code.

GIMP has a steeper learning curve than other similar programs, but in return offers an excellent image editor with a large community and plenty of support.

- 100% free. The program is completely free and offers no paid plan to unlock more tools.

- A powerful image editor. The tools GIMP offers are very powerful, and there is very little you can do in Photoshop, for example, that cannot be done in GIMP.

- An active community. Guides, user manuals and books are continuously uploaded to share experience that helps you get the most out of the software.

- Compatible with Photoshop files. Despite a little friction thanks to the frequent Photoshop updates, Photoshop files should generally be compatible with GIMP.

- Steep learning curve. As with most open source programs out there, usability is not the first priority, so the program can be a little challenging to use for some.

At Link Utvikling we master a range of programs in order to deliver the best possible product. Get in touch if there is something we can do for you, or if you want to hear more about how we use these tools.

Written by Vegard Kallhovd