Top 15 Creative Tools for Graphic Designers

When nothing inspires graphic designers more than strokes of ability and creativity studios continue to release innovative and new tools and programs to make the process more simple for them. 

In this article, we provide you with an array of tools for graphic design that will increase your creativity and workflow in 2017 and bring an extra lustre to your work. 

Play around, play and discover the artist in you, and break through the glass ceiling by boosting your design skills by using these cutting-edge design tools!

Creative Tools for Graphic Designers

1. QuarkXPress 2017

If you’re interested in Page layout software and non-Adobe style, QuarkXPress 2017 is the best tool to meet your requirements. The most recent version includes improved typographic features, including smart text linking and proportional leading. 

As well as the ability to include strokes and shading, and the most recent tools for editing images that are not destructive like new shapes tools, transparency Blend modes, as well as more.

2. Liquid Style Brushes

Have you discovered a passion for the fluid-style illustrations that have been a cult phenomenon in the field of design? The brainchild of Jeremy Child, aka The Artifex Forge, these new Illustrator brushes will allow you to create the iconic style in your designs. 

The set includes over 80 top-quality brushes in a range of shapes and sizes. They also have additional pressure sensitivity tablets, along with instructions and an easy overview of the brush. The brushes can be used with Illustrator from CS5 onwards.

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3. Lindlund Ruler

A ruler designed for creative and design-minded people alike and creative types alike, the Lindlund Ruler is designed to bridge the gap between analogue as well as digital designs. 

The physical device can be utilized to measure millimetres, inches and centimetres (marked on the edges of the outside) and picas as well as pixels. 

In addition to the usual features for straight edges, special markings for iPad or iPhone screen sizes were included because designers wanted the device to help digital designers. The designers can change their measurements of work from inches or centimetres into digital terms.

4. Lightwell

The New York-based children’s app development company Hullabalu has created an innovative program that allows animators, artists and designers to transform their designs and works into mobile applications, without ever getting messy with a lot of code. 

Lightwell transforms your static artwork into interactive and animated experiences to be enjoyed on iPhone and iPad using a Photoshop-like interface with a myriad of easy and flexible features. 

All artists must just drag and drop the props, images or artworks onto the desktop application of Lightwell and quickly create customized dialogues, and interactions. 

And animations before changing their creation into an application that can be used in full. Lightwell is available now on iPad iPhone, iPad as well as Mac OSX 10.11+.

5. Frontify

Frontify is an amazing software that is specifically designed to improve visually collaborative workflows, visual communication and brand style design. It lets designers create their online style guide within a matter of minutes. 

Frontify Workspace and Frontify Style Guide are the two principal functions of the application created to make the design process easy. The Workspace is designed to facilitate the design collaboration of teams and the Style Guide is chiefly designed to be used by individuals.

6. Calligraphr

Calligraphr is among the most effective (and free) new tools that can transform handwriting into fonts that can be used in your designs. All designers need to do is download the template in PNG or PDF, then complete it with a picture or handwritten text, and then upload the file. 

Then, leave it to Calligraphr to convert any handwritten words into fonts. You don’t have to start over if you don’t love the character you’ve chosen; just edit it using the tools provided. 

This amazing tool lets designers draw a myriad of different variations of every character to give an authentic appearance to their fonts or make your custom ligatures.

7. Picnic For Sketch

The fantastic sketching plugin, dubbed Picnic allows multiple designers to work together on one document. It can be synced to the cloud, or utilize your local drive, so it is an open project directory. 

The tool lets designers share their styles, colours, and symbols that are synced across your team to ensure that they are always current.

8. Prototypo

Have you ever fought to locate the perfect font to use for your project? In ideal circumstances, designers prefer to design their custom fonts. However, in reality, the process can take several months. This is the point where Prototypo can help by assisting designers in creating custom fonts with just a few clicks. 

With Prototypo it is possible to start with three standard fonts: Prototypo Elzevir Prototypo Grotesk and Prototypo Fell. The amazing tool allows you to tweak more than 30 variables of these fonts, such as roundness and thickness, aperture, and tweaking the serifs. 

When the user is happy with their font, the typeface may be converted to the .otf format that can be used across Linux, Windows, Mac or any other web browser.

9. F37 Foundry

Do you want to get acquainted with the trendy new guy on the block of type foundries? The most current F37 Foundry is the brain from the London designer studio Face37. 

The idea behind the design was to mimic the tools of Adobe Illustrator the application lets designers try out different fonts using any browser. The designers can turn, change the size and move text in addition to adjusting colours and tracking, kerning and leading before purchasing the typeface.

10. Woodburn

It’s time to purchase this set of five high-res effect effects created by DesignDell for those who want to create a rustic wood-burn look to your designs. Clicking twice on the thumbnail will open a brand-new Photoshop document. 

There you can just place your image inside the file, then click save and you’ll be able to enjoy stunning burning wood effects in just a couple of seconds! It’s as easy as that.

11. Fuel Station

Do you want to quickly create “rough, drippy, and inky” lines in your artwork? Now is it much easier than ever before with this set of 20 dirt-laden brushes designed for Illustrator. 

They can assist you in ridding your artwork of the sanitized appearance that comes with every vector art. As per the RetroSupply team. 

There are instances where designers desire their designs to appear as if they were driven over by a steamroller. They also want to design with an ink pen that’s been melted. Quite.

12. Vectr

Design software Vectr allows you to create vector graphics easily and within a short time. Vector can be described as the best and most powerful, but very simple cross-platform design tool you’ll find in the present. 

The software can be downloaded on their desktops or used in its web-based version with ease. It automatically saves and syncs data across platforms and devices in real-time.

13. Pantone’s Library

If you’re someone who prints frequently then you’ll find that the Pantone colour library can be the source for information on the way your fifth color will print precisely. 

The library of reference is extraordinary and includes an array of colour swatches found in books that provide stunning illustrations of the colours available. The Pantone library may be quite heavy to carry around. 

However, it’s a worthwhile investment because it allows you to know in advance what colours you pick within Illustrator and Photoshop will appear on. 

In addition, it is easy to take the switch off and present it to your colleagues. The software gives you the option of converting five colours to the CMYK value. This can prove useful when you have a client operating on a tight budget and has no room for a fifth colour.

14. WireFlow

This powerful tool was created to be used by designers for designers. WireFlow is a simplified tool that lets you create wireframes on Android. It boasts quick touchscreen controls as well as a brand-new Material-inspired user interface. 

By a single touch users can create seamless screen flows that they can share with friends within a matter of minutes. The program is free to download. provides a fantastic curated selection of simple icons and shapes that can be used to create professional-looking, fast mock-ups.

15. Glass Layer Style For Photoshop

It’s just one click for the most recent Glass layer style in Photoshop to create a balance between the right reflection and transparency to create a stunningly real-looking glass-like effect. 

It includes 4 PSD templates, an ASL template, and a useful video tutorial to help you get started on your work, as well as an example of the style in different sizes.