22 Essential Tools for Graphic Designers in 2020

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22 Essential Tools for Graphic Designers in 2020

Our world is ruled by technology. We are living in the era of the internet. From smallest daily task to major decisions, everything nowadays is computerized. Content too has changed form and ideas are now mostly shared through short graphic clips and compelling logo designs. No wonder 2020 is considered the best time to be a graphic designer!

However, the job of a graphic designer has definitely become more complicated with the customer’s becoming choosier and the competition at its peak. In such situations, coming up with unique and interesting designs and content is really no child’s play.

As musicians use instruments to play a tune or chefs use fire to show their culinary skills similarly, graphic designers need more than just talent to create visual art. To produce compelling visuals, graphic designers use simple and sophisticated graphic design tools that capture the creativity in their mind.

With a wide range of tools and apps that have been launched, new and even expert graphic designers surely have some great assistance to look forward to. Every year, new tools and apps are launched that make the job a tad bit easier for the graphic designers. The year 2020 is no different.

Here are 22 of the most essential tools and affordable logo design apps that are aimed to please all graphic designers;

  • #Laptop/Computer

For digital creatives, this is the ultimate tool that performs all the heavy lifting in the profession. So it is recommended that you get a laptop/computer that suits your requirement as well as your wallet. If you can afford the best and most powerful, then gor for it by all means but if you are on a tight budget then any decent laptop or computer that can adequately handle graphics software and reliably connect to the cloud can sustain your life as a modern-day graphics designer.

  • Stylus and Graphics Tablet

Those who have a dominant tech gene in their DNA will likely prefer the digital equivalent of pencil and paper for their sketching and doodling tasks. 

  • A High End Smartphone

This gadget helps us connect with peers, customers, and the world wide web. It also hosts your favorite apps — including drawing and image-editing tools. In addition to all that, it also works decently well as a camera.

  • #Camera

For graphic designers who need to take, edit, and manage hyper-precise photos and videos, nothing but a decent DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) will suffice.

  • #Cloud Storage

A single design can take up lots of space. So no matter how space have on the hard drive, you still need a space in the cloud to store, synchronize, and manage your design assets, projects, and output. Among other things, cloud storage makes it easier to share and collaborate on design documents, as well as being accessible anytime and anywhere.

Proofing tool like ProofHub for designing teams will manage all your tasks easily and hassle-free. With an online proofing tools like ProofHub, you can make changes in your file instantly, add comments, highlight the flaws in the design while keeping everyone together.

  • #Filestage

Filestage is an online review and approval tool that gives you complete control over the content review process. The tool makes it simple for those graphic designers to collaborate with internal and external stakeholders on a range of file types including images, PDFs, websites, and more.

  • #Photoshop 

Photoshop for designers allows to build confidence, create digital artwork, learn from step-by-step instructions, bring ideas to life, and much more.

  • Online Graphic Design Services

With the advance of cloud computing technology, several companies started offering web-based graphic design services that primarily target general consumers. Here you can find many affordable logo designs.

  • #Repix

Graphic designers who work wonders with pictures and photographs can really get a lot of assistance with the Repix app. This is available on Android and iOS platforms these can be downloaded onto the smartphone and worked with.

  • #DesignBold

DesignBold is a user-friendly online design tool (a simplified version of Photoshop) which helps you create stunning designs within only several drags-and-drops. It is quick, cost-effective and suitable for both amateur and professional designers.

  • #Fotor

With Fotor, there are a number of features that are helpful for designers, like design templates, design stickers, text and fonts, cloud saving, etc.

  • #Logaster

If you want to create a logo for a small project, but do not want to spend a lot of time, then you can use an online logo generator called Logaster.

  • #Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator offers 2D or 3D graphics manipulation to increase efficiency in the design workflow.

  • #Sketchbook Pro

Sketchbook Pro is all that you need to pen down their idea in a jiffy. With a wide range of pens, pencils, brushes and markers, the designers can scribble and draw their designs on a canvas of any size.

  • #Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe Creative Cloud allows the graphic designers to store all their favorite color palettes, graphics and typefaces in the cloud storage and use it for their future projects. This makes it easier for the designer to access all these tools when the new project begins, helping save a lot of time.

  • #Pixelmator

Pixelmator Pro is a tool for designers packed with innovations. It features an elegant single window interface and simplified editing tools with intelligent image editing features.

  • #Kuler

Kuler is a tool developed by Adobe as a savior of sorts which helps the designers to select a number of complementary and analogous shades and find out their HEX codes and RGB codes that will help them to create an interesting design with new shades.

  • #Sublime Text

If you are working on websites, this will give your great power providing powerful shortcuts and tools to leap about a document, filter the file, and quickly make edits.

  • #Adobe Edge Inspect

With Adobe Edge Inspect, designers can pair their laptop or computer with the smartphone or tablet and browse these designs directly on them.

  • #Monitor Calibrator

A great way to control runaway colors is to use monitor calibrators. These devices ensure that the colors you see on your screen will be exactly the same ones that come out in printed outputs such as posters, brochures, and magazines.

  • #Coolors

Coolors is a superfast color scheme generator that creates, save and shares perfect palette in seconds.

Final Thoughts

Graphic design is definitely a competitive and challenging field. It requires keeping the client’s specifications in mind, toning down one’s creativity to meet these needs and then coming up with a design that is unique and at the same time attractive. Whether you have been a graphic designer for some time or have just found your way into this exciting field, you need to keep your design skills sharp and your knowledge of trade tools always updated. These aforesaid tools and affordable logo design apps are some of many that can help you achieve your creative potential and give you a helping hand.