Up until recently you needed to hire a graphic designer to develop your website and advertising. Which is a great option for a businesses that can afford it. Now, thanks to the plethora of design tools on the internet, creating professional websites, graphics, email campaigns, and presentations is much easier than it used to be. Plus, it’s also more economical when you’re on a budget.
We’ve scoured the internet to find you some of the most innovative, free resources for businesses that want to add something special to their projects themselves. Whether you’re looking to add beautiful photos, choose the perfect color scheme, or create an interesting graphic design, these programs can help you achieve amazing DIY results.
Graphics, Documents & Presentations
Canva
This is one of the best graphic design resources available. Once you’ve registered, it takes less than a minute to understand the basics. You simply just pick and choose from hundreds of design templates, with drag-and-drop functionality, combined with a library of free and paid images, makes it a great resource for creating a range of professional-looking graphics from Facebook ads to website headers and more.
Infogr.am
This tool helps you create visual representations of data, including infographics, charts, maps, and reports. What’s helpful about this program is that whatever you create it is automatically adapted and optimized to display anywhere, including smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Pre-made templates allow you to stay focused on your data.
Prezi
Do you need to tell an exciting story about your product or service? Then Prezi is just what you need. This storytelling tool enables you to create a more visually interesting presentation than traditional slides. During your presentations, you can use it to pan among topics, select and zoom in on details, and then zoom out to provide context.
Visme
If you are looking to create engaging online content you will love Visme. Use it to create professional infographics, presentations, banners, short animations, and teasers. Its minimalist interface ensures it is easy to use. And if you’re short on inspiration, there are plenty of professional pre-made templates, free images, and vector icons to choose from. While Visme reserves some functionality for its premium users, look for its free option.
Colors
Coolors
Whether you’re designing an ad or a website, having a great color palette is essential. This tool makes the process of finding your color palettes easy. Coolors generates five coordinating colors. If you’re not pleased with the results, just hit your space bar to display a brand new selection. See one color you like, but not its matches? Keep it and generate a new palette based on your choice.
Adobe Color CC
Adobe’s free digital color wheel lets you to choose any color of the rainbow and ask for coordinating color options based on your color palette preference: monochromatic, analogous, complementary, etc. If you have a photo with the perfect colors, simply upload it and let Adobe CC match them. You can also select from a range of popular pre-made palette schemes.
Fonts
Font Squirrel
This is a perfect resource for people looking for free fonts for their next commercial project. FontSquirrl is easy to navigate, and its fonts are high quality. If you are planning on using fonts for the internet, then you’ll love the built-in Webfont Generator tool. With it, you can simply upload and convert fonts for embedding in online projects.
Canva Font Combinations (formerly Type Genius)
Combining several fonts in a single project is best left to a skilled graphic designer. Canva Font Combinations takes out the guesswork and allows you to simply select your first font and then offers a bunch of multiple suggested pairings.
DaFont
DaFont is popular with designers and newbies alike because it’s simple to use. If you are trying to design graphics all on your own, this tool has thousands of downloadable fonts in widely different styles. It has a helpful preview tool, simply type in a word or phrase to get a custom preview of how that word looks in any font you like.
Images
Unsplash
This image library is an excellent resource, especially if you’re looking for stunning landscapes. Snowy Mountain peaks, sparkling waterfalls, endless deserts — everything you want is here. Every month Unsplash uploads around 4000 new high-resolutions photos and the archive is easily searchable.
Gratisography
Although this image collection isn’t the most extensive, it does offer some of the most evocative images on the internet, all of which are originals by artist Ryan McGuire. Many images are abstract; others are whimsical. As a bonus, they require no attribution. Gratisography uploads new images each week, so check back frequently.
FreeImages
Featuring a huge collection of photos, FreeImages is a must for designers working on new website projects. Rather than niche images, this library offers thousands in wide variety of categories from photographers with diverse styles. It’s easily searchable, which is a time-saver. However searches include both paid (from Getty images) and free images, so scan the results for what’s free.
