What Apps Do You Need For Graphic Design?

What Apps Do You Need For Graphic Design?

Once upon a time, if you tried to do technical work using a Microsoft platform, then you were limited to Microsoft Word and Excel. However, in the 2010s, all that changed, with rivals releasing superior tech. Likewise; Adobe, in turn, has not been silent; battling back with new features and modern design software.
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What Apps Do You Need For Graphic Design
What Apps Do You Need For Graphic Design

Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop first debuted in February 1990 and has stood the test of time as the great old fighting horse of the design industry. Photoshop, first used for image processing, is also being used in a broad range of graphical design applications.

Now that it has lived longer, the endurance is both a joy and curse.

Photoshop is unquestionably the go-to app for design studios, and you can fail to get a position without learning how to use it. When you are a freelancer, you can hopefully use no other techniques in your day to day, but doing so will be impossible to avoid.

But after that, how fine is it? Well, you don’t remain on top of an ever-expanding market for nothing, and Adobe has made strident attempts to upgrade its tool and make it competitive over the years, recently introducing strong 3D modelling and 3D printing capability, for example.

It is easier and more effective to use, and also includes minor yet critical tweaks to improve its pace and performance. You now have the ability to undo several times in one operation, and this will save a lot of time in practise.

The key factor for selecting a different product is cost. Photoshop, like other Adobe products such as Numbers 2 and 6, is still accessible only as part of a Creative Cloud subscription , and these annual fees will always add up.

Having said that, there are savings to be had (check out the new offers here), and if you’re utilising several CC products, then the interoperability between them, and other utilities including Adobe Fonts and Adobe Stock, will also render the extra expense worth it in terms of minimising work time and tension.

Adobe Illustrator(R), CC.

Illustrator has been continuously improved and improved to serve as an improved replacement. (Image credit: CoSchedule)
Since 1987, Illustrator has been the industry standard vector-based drawing programme, and it’s long been considered the standard drawing application for the creative industry.

Since the domination has begun to fray a little, there has been an influx of new adversaries.

As with Photoshop, this has been mostly about price, and for those whom money is less critical than quality, Illustrator remains a hugely powerful and flexible method, that Adobe is constantly making efforts to develop further.

The most recent version includes a Freeform Gradients tool that makes creating rich gradients fast, and a Global Editing function that lets you make modifications for all instances of an object at once.

Creative Cloud

The app includes a crop planner with AI suggestions, and the option to personalise your toolbar.

The same problems that matter to Photoshop often apply to Illustrator. On the positive hand, the market ubiquity allows it a good platform to practise about your profession, and the alignment of the Creative Cloud as a whole helps streamline the workflow. Negative aspects include an annual fee.

The design tool is inexpensive with no monthly fee
The design tool is inexpensive with no monthly fee

The design tool is inexpensive with no monthly fee, offering Adobe a run for its money (Image credit: Serif)
Until recently, Illustrator and Photoshop have been outspent by low-cost yet low-quality alternatives. For programmers who didn’t require all that much computing resources, and only wanted to perform some basic activities, the alternatives lacked the scope and complexity of what Microsoft’s platform offered.

However, in the 2010s, it all shifted. First came Sketch, a free vector graphics editor, which was more advanced than the paid software it was compared to. It was appropriate for digital design areas, yet only focused on paper.

Affinity Designer

In 2014 came Affinity Designer, a strong and intuitive vector graphics application that was cheap, powerful and helpful for print design purposes as well as digital. There is only one installation problem.

At last, in November 2016, Affinity Designer was available for purchase. After PC users finally had a respectable alternative to Illustrator, which offered advanced vector and pixel editing features, 10 million percent zoom, non-destructive effects, and more.

Although certain features are absent in Affinity Designer, such as warping items, almost all of what you can do in Affinity Designer can be accomplished in Illustrator. For those who have been with Illustrator, the Affinity Designer code is logical and familiar enough to be convenient to use.

Code for the new chipsets allows for faster user experience, and several designers have said that Affinity Designer is faster than Adobe Creative Cloud apps. Affinity Designer often has a great value, as there is no monthly membership charge.

That said, Illustrator remains the industry norm, and so there’s something of a chicken-and-egg problem; most studios don’t want to use it unless most studios are using it.

Although Affinity Designer is interoperable with sister tools Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher, (see below) there is nowhere yet near the range of software and services in the Creative Cloud.

Affinity Designer, on the other hand, is well worth considering for freelancers who have more flexibility about how they function, particularly because you can import and export.ai files as required.

Adobe InDesign is a software programme that allows you to create

InDesign is the industry standard for print printing, and it still has several useful web publishing capabilities (Image credit: Adobe)
Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator were leaders of picture processing and vector graphics, respectively. InDesign, on the other hand, was a little late to the group when it debuted in 1999. QuarkXpress led the desktop publishing applications industry at the time. However, InDesign soon took control, owing to its lower cost.

InDesign has been the undisputed king of print publishing over the past two decades, and it has grown over time to have several pretty cool interactive publishing capabilities as well. The main recent enhancements have been minor but important, such as endnote support and improved font filtering, as well as improved connectivity with the Creative Cloud.

Adobe, on the other hand, has steered clear of so much drastic reform. This is a good thing, since one of InDesign’s greatest draws is its popularity with designers who have used it for years, if not their whole careers.