13 Must-have Tools for Graphic Design Beginners

Looking for online design jobs?

Well, look no further than in graphic design.

Graphic design is vital to helping companies build their brand identity and effectively stand out from their competitors.

Additionally, since they’re in such high demand, numerous career opportunities are available to aspiring graphic designers, including jobs in advertising agencies, design studios, and tech companies.

Before you can start a career as a remote graphic designer, you need the right tools for the job.

However, with so many apps and tools available, which ones do you need when starting out in graphic design?

Here are 13 must-have tools every graphic design beginner must have.

Adobe Photoshop

An essential graphic design software every novice graphic designer should have is Adobe Photoshop.

Photoshop’s various features help users design and edit images no matter their skill level. 

Features:

• Allows you to add and format text within images. It also has options for adjusting font style, sizes, spacing, and alignment.
• Provides numerous tools for editing digital images, including cropping, resizing, and adjusting colors, brightness, and contrast.
• Supports digital drawing and painting with brushes, pens, pencils, and other customizable tools.
• Offers plenty of filters and effects you can apply to images to achieve effects like blurs, distortions, textures, and stylizations.

Canva

Another tool many graphic design beginners use is Canva.

Canva is a free online graphic design platform that enables users to create various visual content.

It has a very intuitive drag-and-drop interface and a vast library of customizable templates, graphics, fonts, and photos, enabling beginners to create professional-looking designs quickly.

Features:

• Access to thousands of pre-designed templates for various projects, from social media posts to business cards.
• Simple yet impressive designs.
• Easy to navigate. 
• Allows users to collaborate with their team or client/s in real-time.
• After completing a design, users can easily export it in various formats, including PNG, JPEG, PDF, etc. Canva also has options for sharing designs directly with social media or embedding them on websites.

Pixlr

Pixlr is one of the most popular web-based photo editing tools for graphic design beginners.

Aside from being easy to use, Pixlr is also free, which is perfect if you’re on a budget.

Features:

• A straightforward interface that beginners can easily use.
• An image library with many free images covering various subjects to choose from.
• Enables saving edited images to the cloud and sharing them directly to social media or via email.
• Includes features like double exposure, healing, and cropping of images.

Inkscape

Looking for an easy-to-use and free vector graphics editor? Inkscape is the app for you.

Inkscape is a free, open-source vector graphics editor that graphic design beginners can easily use to create and edit vector-based illustrations, diagrams, etc. It offers many powerful tools and is a great starting point for beginners to get into vector graphics.

Features:

• Various drawing tools for creating shapes, lines, curves, and freehand drawings.
• Bezier curve tools for creating smooth, curved paths and shapes.
• Allows users to customize objects’ fill and stroke properties, including colors, gradients, patterns, and opacity.
• Supports extensions and plug-ins that extend its functionality and provide additional tools and features.
• Capable of supporting various file formats for import and export, including SVG, PDF, EPS, PNG, etc.

Figma

Working with others on a project? You’ll need an app like Figma.

Figma is a cloud-based design tool that cultivates a collaborative environment for designers. It allows you to work seamlessly with your team via its real-time collaboration features. 

Features:

• Enables designers to create prototypes, UI designs, and interactive experiences.
• Provides design components and reusable styles for consistent design systems.
• Supports team collaboration with live editing and commenting.

Krita

Krita is a free professional and open-source raster graphics editor mainly meant for digital art and 2D animations. It’s a great graphic design tool for novice cartoonists, illustrators, and concept artists.

Its main features include a customizable layout, over thirty dockers for additional functionality, and dark and light color themes.

Features:

• Access to a wide variety of brushes.
• Has brush stabilizers for beginners with shaky hands.
• Includes vector tools, allowing artists to mix raster and vector elements in their designs.
• A resource manager to help you keep track of your brushes, textures, and other assets.
• Compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux.

GIMP

Short for GNU Image Manipulation Program, GIMP is another free and open-source program for editing images and creating digital art.

Despite being free, GIMP offers a comprehensive suite of tools for photo editing, image manipulation, and graphic design. Additionally, it has intuitive menus and toolbars, making it easy for new designers to work with.

Features:

• Supports advanced features like layers, masks, and customizable brushes.
• An excellent option for beginners on a budget.
• Has a large and active community of users and developers who provide support, tutorials, and resources for beginners.
• GIMP also receives continuous improvements and updates over time. This gives beginners access to the latest tools and enhancements to support their projects.

Vectr

Want to try out website and vector graphic design?

Try Vectr.

Vectr is a fantastic tool for beginners due to its simplicity, accessibility, and versatility. Its user-friendly interface and intuitive drag-and-drop functionality make it easier for new designers to use and create designs. 

Aside from this, Vectr’s also a web-based app, so you just need a stable internet connection to use it. Best of all, it’s free.

Features:

• Enables you to work with your team or client in real-time.
• Integrates with WordPress.
• Allows importing of images to various formats.

Adobe Illustrator

Another Adobe product for beginners is Adobe Illustrator.

Illustrator is the industry-leading software for creating and editing vector-based designs. 

Features:

• Ideal for logo design, illustrations, and typography.
• Integrates seamlessly with other Adobe Creative Cloud apps like Photoshop.
• Offers precise control over anchor points, paths, and shapes.

Piktochart

Piktochart is an effective tool designers can use to create impressive infographics without any prior experience.

It offers various templates for presentations, reports, and more, giving beginners a great starting point for their designs.

Features:

• Easy-to-use design tool.
• More than four hundred templates are available for use.
• Offers educational resources and tutorials to help new users use the platform and improve their skills.
• Plenty of icons and graphics to choose from.

Sketch

Sketch is another popular design tool for UI and web design. It offers a combination of a user-friendly interface, various templates, and a wealth of plug-ins and integrations.

Features:

• Supports wireframing, prototyping, and creating pixel-perfect designs.
• Utilizes an artboard-based approach, enabling designers to work on multiple design screens or pages within one document. This is particularly useful when designing apps, websites, or multi-screen interfaces.
• Provides various export options so users can transfer their designs to different formats and resolutions for web, print, etc.
• Supports collaboration features and version control via integration with third-party services, enabling effective collaboration and tracking.

The Right Computer

You also need a PC capable of handling the various graphic design tools you’ll be using at work.

When choosing between a PC or a laptop, the former is usually cheaper and offers better specs. PCs are also easier to upgrade when the need arises.

However, a laptop is more practical if you travel a lot, though you have to pay more for higher specs.

After choosing between a PC and a laptop, you must decide on which operating system to use.

Most people use Windows since it’s cheaper and offers access to more apps. That said, Macs are more optimized for the apps in their ecosystem.

Recommended Specs for Your Computer

Here are some recommended specs for graphic designers:

• Processor:
  • Minimum: Intel Core i5 or Ryzen 5.
  • Recommended: Intel Core i7 or Ryzen 7. For Apple users, Apple M1 is comparable to Intel i7 and Ryzen 7.
  • If you have the budget, consider upgrading to Intel Core i9, Ryzen 9, and Apple M1 Max.
• Internal Storage:
  • Minimum: 256 GB SSD (Solid State Drive).
  • Recommended: 512 GB or higher SSD.

• RAM:
  • Minimum: 8 GB of RAM.
  • Recommended: 16 GB of RAM or higher.

• Graphics Card:
  • You’ll need a dedicated graphics card (GPU) since it significantly boosts the performance of your graphic design software, particularly when working on complex projects or high-resolution files.
• Monitor Size:
  • Generally, thirteen inches is suitable for most jobs. However, you can go for twenty-one inches or higher with a PC.

Stylus and Graphics Tablet

One essential graphic design tool for many designers today is a stylus and graphics tablet.

This computer input device lets you hand-draw images, animations, and graphics using a pen-like stylus.

These devices offer a more natural, intuitive, and precise way to make digital art, boosting creativity, productivity, and control over the design process.

Some popular options for graphics tablets are the Wacom Intuos Pro, Apple iPad Pro with Apple Pencil, and the Huion Kamvas Pro 12.

Ready to Start Your Online Graphic Design Career?

Getting into graphic design can be daunting, especially if you don’t know which tools to get.

Fortunately, the list above can help you find the right graphic design tools to start your career.

Are you still looking for work from home jobs? If so, Remote Staff is here to help.

Our jobs list contains various positions offering an online work from home setup, from online transcription jobs to engineering ones.

Ready to start your online career? Sign up here. Good luck!