Every blogger needs graphic design tools to showcase their products and services in the form of visual content.
Studies have shown that internet readers pay close attention to information-carrying images for more extended periods compared to texts on the page.
Therefore, if you want to drive traffic to your blog and increase conversion rates, having high-quality designs is a must.
We’ve compiled 21 innovative graphic design tools you can choose from to start reaping the benefits of great visual content.
To make it easy, we’ve subdivided these graphic design tools into six categories namely:
- Infographics
- Images with Text
- GIFs
- Photo Editors
- Screenshots
- Image Resizers
If you prefer to hire a professional to create great designs for you, click here!
Infographics
1. Canva
Canva is one of the most popular online graphic design tools available.
Its popularity stems from the fact that Canva is extremely easy to use – “an amazingly simple graphic design tool.”
Features
- Apart from infographics, you can also design other visuals like social media posts, marketing materials, social media and email headers, events and Ads graphics using their pre-made templates.
- In creating infographics, you have four different categories to choose from: Business, Charity, Education, and Timeline.
- You can tweak your chosen template further by adding some personalization and branding to your designs. You can also include charts, graphs, images, as well as hyperlinks to your template.
Pricing
Canva is a free graphic design tool, but if you want access to additional features like transparent background downloads, pre-organized designs into folders and have your logos and color palettes saved, you can upgrade to Canva for Work.
Canva for Work has two billing variants: annual billing ($9.95/month) and monthly billing ($12.95/month).
Here is a social sharing tool you can use to share your designs with the world!
2. Venngage
Venngage is an online graphic design tool used to create infographics, reports, social media posts, and other graphics.
Features
- Venngage is easy to use with its drag-and-drop functionality as well as its user-friendly interface.
- Venngage has thousands of templates you can choose from to create stunning infographics. These templates cater for almost all sectors such as Business, Education, Tech, Travel, and Social Media.
- There are more than enough add-ons to choose from to include in your infographics such as maps, text, hyperlinks, and images. Whatever add-on you need, you can be sure you’ll find it on Venngage.
- With Venngage, you can add interactive elements like forms, polls, and YouTube videos to your infographics. This cool feature can give a boost to the attractiveness of your infographic.
Pricing
Venngage is a freemium platform. The Basic plan has a limited number of themes, charts, and templates.
Also, you can only make five infographics, bearing the Venngage logo.
The Premium plan costs $19/month while the Business plan is $49/month. However, there are discount rates for quarterly and yearly purchases.
Need other blogging ideas? Check this out!
3. Infogr.am
Infogr.am is an online graphic design tool for creating charts, graphs, infographics and much more.
This easy-to-use all-purpose tool features samples from The Verge, Nerd Wallet, and HuffPost Business.
Features
- Infogr.am has over 35 types of charts and 200 maps to choose from when designing your graphics.
- You can also import your data from Google Docs, Excel Sheets, or CSV. Apart from these sources, you can also choose data from public records of institutions like the World Bank and UN.
- With Infogr.am you can design charts, reports, maps, dashboard, social media visuals for your blog.
- You can also save your visual content in high-quality PNG, PDF, or GIF formats and share them on your social media platforms.
- You’ll find Infogr.am more interesting if you have a working knowledge of Excel sheets.
Pricing
With the free plan, you can’t download your images in PNG format.
The monthly price for Pro plan and the Business plan is 19$ and $67 respectively. The Enterprise plan is available on demand.
4. Easel.ly
Easel.ly is a popular graphic design tool used to create infographics. Easel.ly is used by companies like IBM, and Boeing, as well as institutions such as Stanford and Harvard.
Features
- You can choose to design your infographics based on category or theme. Popular types include History, Entertainment, and Animals.
The theme subcategory has Resumes, Timeline, Comparison, among others.
- Easel.ly allows you to add shapes, charts, stock photos, texts, hyperlinks, and YouTube videos to your infographics.
- Although Easel.ly is easy to use, most of its templates are text-heavy. This feature means that you’ll have to spend more time adjusting the templates to suit your needs.
Pricing
The free version of Easel.ly has a limited number of templates and features.
However, if you want to enjoy more benefits, you can upgrade to the Pro version by paying $3/month.
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Images with Text
5. AddText
AddText is another online graphic design tool that allows you to insert text in images; either yours or those from AddText’s database.
Features
- You can choose images from a wide range of categories such as Abstract, Animals, People, Memes, and Nature.
- You possess total control over determining how the text is arranged.
- AddText allows you to select text styles like Funny, Romantic, and Meme-style, depending on your needs.
- Quite easy to use. Also, the process of inserting texts in an image doesn’t take long.
Pricing
Free.
6. Word Swag
Word Swag is an app built for Android and iOS platforms which allows you to put text over images.
Features
- You can place text over your photos, or choose from the over 590,000 free backgrounds provided. There are also a ton of captions and quotes to choose from if you’re unsure of what to add.
- Word Swag has about 48 text styles available, and you can also design custom text layouts.
- Bloggers will find this online graphic design tool particularly useful because it can be used to create cover photos and other blog
- After editing the picture, you have an option of saving and sharing it to social networks.
Pricing
Word Swag costs $4.99 on iOS and $3.99 on Android devices.
7. QuotesCover
A good example of graphic design tools for beginners is QuotesCover. It is used for adding quotes on images and sharing on social networks.
Features
- Quotes are available for selection from different categories like Life, Youth, and Romance. You can also include a quote of yours or tweetable bits from your blog post.
- Select from a list of social networking sites to upload your quotes in whatever format you choose – whether as updates, Facebook covers, Twitter header, or Google
- There are many fonts and background colors you can choose from to edit your image. Download formats could either be PNG or JPG
Pricing
Free.
8. Recite
Recite is possibly the most straightforward quote-over-images design tool. The user interface is free from hassles, and the process is quite straightforward.
If you have many images to edit with inserted quotes, Recite is your most comfortable alternative.
Features
- Recite has an extensive database of quotes you can choose from. Some of the categories include Wisdom, Art, Peace, Leadership, and many more.
- There are also many pre-designed backgrounds to choose from and paste your quotes on.
Pricing
Free.
Here are some other tips that will help your blog stand out, in addition to graphic design tools!
GIFs
9. Giphy
Giphy – the GIF database and creator, is a search engine that allows you to discover millions of two-second videos and GIFs on the internet.
Features
- You can create your GIFs from YouTube and Vimeo videos using Giphy’s clean, user-friendly layout – The Gif Maker. The process is quite simple: enter a video link or YouTube URL to the GIF creation website, and choose a start time and duration of your GIF. Sit back and watch Giphy work its magic.
- The GIF Caption enables you to caption pre-existing GIFs from Giphy’s extensive database. Apart from captions, you can even add animated stickers to your GIFs using this editor.
- There’s a Slideshow option that allows you to create an animated GIF slideshow using images or many GIFS.
- Giphy is one of the more interesting graphic design tools for beginners, and they have an online community where you can get guidance if you’re stuck with something.
Pricing
Free.
10. LICEcap
LICEcap is also a graphic design tool used for creating GIFs.
However, its unique feature is that with LICEcap, you can create GIFs directly from your desktop.
LICEcap is perfect if you have information you wish to capture and using video-based formats might be too long and text-based formats inadequate.
Features
- You can quickly capture any part of your screen and adjust the size of the recording space to suit your needs.
- You can also pause the recording and capture another part of the screen.
- LICEcap allows you to determine the duration of the video recording automatically.
Pricing
Free.
11. Imgflip
Imgflip is an online tool that lets you create GIFs from pictures or images, or by using GIF templates on the site.
Features
- You can design your GIF using their preset GIFs, images, or by inserting a video link from YouTube.
- Apart from creating GIFs, you can also make memes, and pie charts on the site with relative ease.
Pricing
The free version doesn’t allow previewing of your GIF while editing especially if you’re not using a YouTube video to create your GIF.
The Pro version – Imgflip Pro costs $9.95/month and has lots of exclusive features.
Check this out for more ways to make your blog stand out and earn good money!
12. Image Resizers
These are online graphic design tools that allow you to crop images to the optimal size needed to upload them to social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest.
As a blogger, you can use these tools to crop visual designs such as cover arts, thumbnails, highlight image, and headers in your blog.
The next four tools have similar features and are easy to use. Most importantly, they are all free.
Screenshots
13. Screenpresso
Screenpresso is a graphic design tool built to cater for your image and video screen capture needs.
Features
- You can capture a screenshot while scrolling up or across a window. This feature is particularly beneficial when you need to capture large pages like newsletters and maps. Of course, it isn’t restricted to capturing large pages only, and you can also capture parts of the screen.
- You can insert shapes, symbols, numbers and other annotations to your captured screenshot. Apart from this, you can also blur unnecessary parts of your screenshot.
- Screenpresso is ideal for capturing videos from your desktop. With this feature, you can create short tutorials whose size can be converted to less than 1MB. You can convert videos into whatever format you require and also extract images from such videos.
- The best feature yet is the simplicity of generating documents in various forms like Word, PDF, or HTML, using your captured images. This feature might come in handy if you wish to convert your screen captures into an easy-to-download guide quickly.
- Share and publish your captured image or video on all your social media channels or via cloud sharing.
Pricing
The free version has major drawbacks like the limited ability of the Image Editor and Document Generator. Apart from this, all videos and shared content will bear a Screenpresso branding.
Screenpresso Pro costs $32 per user for freelancers and small teams, while the Site License for large companies goes for $2,150.
14. PlaceIt
PlaceIt allows you to capture a photo of your website or blog and “place” your image into a phone or computer.
With PlaceIt, you can upload photos directly into Creative Commons-enabled stock photo templates and quickly generate a mock-up of your website or blog in no time.
Features
- You can enter a URL into the app to grab images (such as the homepage of your blog). You can also upload screenshots from your computer.
- You can either choose a transparent background which you can later edit using graphic design tools like Photoshop or Adobe Spark or select from one of PlaceIt’s background categories.
- PlaceIt allows users to add videos in their mock-up by using a recommended screen capture tool and placing the capture in a pre-designed mock-up.
- If you need to capture a scrolling web page, all you need to do is to enter the URL, and the images will be captured immediately.
Pricing
For the free version of PlaceIt, images and videos have a lower resolution of 400 x 300 and 640 x 360 respectively.
The paid one-time purchases for high and super-high quality images cost $8 and $28 respectively, while the price of a high-resolution video goes for $99.
For the subscription plans, you can pay between $29 to $99 monthly for images, and $199/monthly for pictures and videos. However, these plans are subject to a limited number of downloads.
15. Snagit
Snagit is a graphic design tool used to capture scrolling windows, videos, as well as for creating GIFs.
Features
- Edit screenshots with many editing options to choose from such as including callouts, shapes, borders, symbols, and special stamps. Apart from these, you can also magnify or blur parts of the image.
- Snagit is distinguished for its high-quality “Scrolling Windows Capture” feature which allows scrolling images to be captured in any direction without compromising the quality of the captured image.
- You can trim and include sounds in Snagit while editing videos. Plus, you can record videos using your webcam and edit directly using Snagit.
Pricing
Snagit’s free trial lasts for 15 days while the paid plan costs $49.95 per user.
16. Awesome Screenshot
The Awesome Screenshot is a graphic design tool available as a Chrome extension. Its primary use is to capture web pages, either partly or wholly.
Features
- Insert text, shapes, and other annotations to your captured images. You can also upload pictures directly from your computer and make adjustments on it.
- The tool makes it easy for you to share your images with other members of your team, and receive feedback and comments directly on the image.
- Awesome Screenshot has a unique delay screen capture feature that allows you to capture images of drop-down menus.
Pricing
Awesome Screenshot is free for 30 images.
Afterward, the Premium plan costs $8.99/yearly (for the next 1000 -3000 users who upgrade). Premium users have access to unlimited images.
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Photo Editor & Collage Maker
17. BeFunky
BeFunky is a photo editing, collage making, and online graphic design tool. With it, you can create amazing designs for your blog using incredibly straightforward editing tools.
Features
- BeFunky has a software that allows you to edit photos and videos quickly and share at the tap of a button
- Apart from being a great photo editing tool, you can design event graphics, social media graphics, and headers, as well as blogging resources.
Pricing
The basic plan is free. But the paid versions are divided into the Pro plan monthly billing ($4.95/month) and the Pro plan yearly billing ($2.91/month)
18. PicMonkey
PicMonkey is a photo editing and design making tool whose intuitive process allows bloggers to spend less time tweaking templates and more time optimizing their blog posts.
It provides all you might need related to photo editing, collage-making, and graphic design.
Features
- PicMonkey gives you total control over how you want your image output to look like. You can adjust image size, exposure, color, gradients, and other characteristics.
- Apart from this, Clone – PicMonkey’s touching up tool can edit out unwanted additions to your otherwise perfect pictures.
- If you need a picture to work with, PicMonkey boasts of thousands of photos in their repository, you can also use designs to create social media images and blog
Pricing
PicMonkey is an excellent graphic design tool, but it has a 7-day free trial period. It has two plans which are billed annually – Premium ($3.99/month) and Supremium ($8.33).
PicMonkey is a tried and tested tool, and it has all the necessities bloggers need to spruce up their sites.
19. Stencil
Stencil is another freemium graphic design tool for bloggers, social marketers, and content creators.
This tool is designed for those who want to get more from their social media marketing employing great visual content that can help double their social media engagement and conversions.
Features
- With its visual content creator, you can design detailed and colorful pictures in less than no time.
- The visual-making process is made easier with over 1 million background photos to choose from, as well as 100,000 quotes, 300,000 icons, and graphics plus more than 640 templates to choose from.
- Stencil also provides you with a chrome extension that allows you to edit images easily at the click of a button. Apart from this, you can also view your design in the stencil creator while editing.
Pricing
The free version only allows you to create a maximum of 10 images monthly with access to limited icons and backgrounds.
The premium versions – Pro ($9/month) and Unlimited ($12/month) give you access to over 650 templates, 800,000 royalty-free high-quality photos, as well as many more benefits.
Click here for more tips that will make you a successful and outstanding blogger!
20. Fotor
No list of online graphic design tools will be complete without mentioning Fotor.
With over 200 million users, the photo editing, collage-making, and design software is a tool all bloggers must try out.
Features
- Apart from its user-friendly, comprehensive editing, graphic design software, the two prominent features that set Fotor apart include its photo editing software speed and its cloud-based technology.
- You can save your designs in JPG, PNG, HD, and PDF formats. You can also print out your images with the highest quality available.
Pricing
The basic plan is free while its Pro plan costs $3.99/month and $8.99/month for its annual and monthly billing respectively.
21. Bonus Additions: Best Platforms for Creating and Sharing your Visual Content – Fiverr and Social Warfare
Quality visual content can go a long way in getting you more visitors, clicks, conversions, and ultimately more sales.
However, if you don’t have the time to delve into these or any online graphic design tools, but you don’t want to lose the inherent benefits amazing visuals bring, then there’s the perfect alternative for you.
Simple, hire a graphic designer. And the best platform to find graphic designers who can churn out great visual content at reasonable fees is Fiverr.
Click here to hire a graphic designer on Fiverr!
After getting your graphic designs, the next important step is getting people to see what you’ve put so much work into creating.
This is where Social Warfare comes in. It is a feature-packed yet straightforward and intuitive social sharing plugin of utmost importance if your blog aims to boost social shares, increase engagements, traffic, and conversions.
After making the switch to Social Warfare, the chances of you changing to another plugin is really slim.
Click here to start sharing your great designs with the world!
Wrapping Up
We’ve discussed everything you need to know about 23 cool graphic design tools plus extra hints to help you upscale your blog via great visual content.
What online graphic design tools do you use to create visual content? And what features do you like? Share them with us in the comments section below.
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