14 Graphic Design Tools To Make Designs Like A Pro

ProofHub
ProofHub Blog
Published in
5 min readOct 11, 2018

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How do you feel when you discover something that makes your life easier, less complex and is more productive? The feeling is definitely unexplainable. That’s the magic of technology. If you prioritize the tools, it will make your life easier and more efficient.

“Design is the process of going from an existing condition to a preferred one, observe that there’s no relationship to art.” — Milton Glaser

We asked a group of designers about their favorites tools, on the basis of which we have a curated list of web design software to create awesome looking web designs to speed up your life and raise your productivity.

Let’s explore:

1. ProofHub

ProofHub offers robust proofing and project management capabilities for designers and developers overloaded with creative work like drafting designs, making changes and handling many things. It brings together everyone involved in designing under one roof and makes the approval process quick and easy.

Key features:

  • Real-time collaboration and quick feedback sharing
  • Markup tools to highlight sections
  • Threaded comments for feedback
  • One-click approval process

Other features like Gantt charts, Kanban boards and Workflows and much more.

2. Instasize

For designers or marketers who often use mobile phones for photography, Instasize is a multipurpose editor providing all the basic options you need in one app. Available on iOS and Android — It’s user-friendly and simple to master, and is especially useful for those who need to tweak images on the go.

Key Features:

  • Cropping and resizing
  • Variety of color filters
  • Advanced editing sliders
  • Borders (pre-set or uploaded)
  • Text overlays
  • Video editing (iOS version)
  • Beauty tools (iOS version)

3. Webflow

WebFlow has an impressive functionality, geared towards creative professionals, web entrepreneurs and designers who design websites in a visual way. It is also a CMS and hosting platform that can everything under one roof.

Top features:

  • Dynamic design
  • On-site editing
  • Scalable hosting
  • CSS filters

“Focus more on work and less on management. Start using ProofHub.”

4. InVision

An invision is a prototyping tool for designers that provides you with better design, better platform. InVision offers some great prototyping tools that actually reflects a real web experience.

Key features:

  • High fidelity prototyping tool
  • Mobile prototyping with gestures
  • Real-time to-do lists
  • Collaborative
  • Work on layouts
  • Communicative design
  • Design-driven project management
  • Ideation and presentation

5. Optimizely

Optimizely is designed to work seamlessly on any website built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It will always run robust handling fiddly details for you. It is also easy to implement and is accessible to those less fluent in coding because of its code-free visual editor. Optimizely is so featured rich with fewer errors and more visibility.

Key features:

  • Simple visual editing
  • Mobile web compatible
  • Multi-Page testing
  • Developer tools
  • Customizable platforms
  • Multi-domain support
  • Integrate with heatmaps

6. Time Doctor

Time Doctor is a remote time tracking application to analyze how much time is spent in the workday. It is built specifically to track remote employees’ productivity. You will get the accurate data in seconds where the time is exactly spent and reduce where time is wasted.

Key features:

  • Screenshot monitoring and recording
  • Reporting tools
  • Integration
  • Private and secure
  • Productivity analysis
  • Time & attendance

7. Framer

This is a tool for entire design workflow from sketching to wireframing to a finished prototype. Designers can make designs from the sketch, and experiment with user flows.

Key features:

  • Responsive layouts
  • Simple design
  • User interface and usability
  • Advanced vector editing
  • Easy styles
  • Smart and improved workflow
  • Production-ready deliverables

8. Design Wizard

Design Wizad is your go-to tool for high-quality visual content creation. It holds over 1 million images and tens of thousands of video templates. Perfect for social media marketers, party planners and business owners, Design Wizard aims to inspire.

Key features:

  • Free font library
  • Resize feature
  • Integrations with Hubspot, Marketo, Buffer and Intercom
  • Favorites folders
  • Custom color palette

9. ADOBE XD CC

Adobe XD CC provides an all-in-one solution for designing websites, mobile apps and more. XD is simplicity at its best. The intuitive tools deliver precision, smooth integration, and performance.

Key features:

  • Eliminates tedious tasks using repeat grids
  • Has fast, versatile artboard
  • Integrate with different tools
  • Reimagined layers and symbols
  • Control and customize your experience
  • Get feedback faster to iterate faster
  • Create advanced animations
  • Preview on mobile devices

10. Atomic

Atomic brings advanced design features for designers that are easy to learn. Every designer can build an interactive design that is indistinguishable from reality.

Key features:

  • Quicker prototyping
  • Interaction
  • The code is more consistent
  • Modular file structure
  • Reusable interactive components
  • Finely controlled keyframe animations

11. Axure

Axure for professional designers is used to create advanced interactive prototypes, click-through wireframes, and user flows, to deliver much more than typical mockup tools. The latest release of Axure is full of new features.

Key features:

  • Mobile prototyping
  • Collaboration
  • Interactive element
  • Wireframe creation
  • Page Linking
  • Feedback management
  • Adaptive/responsive design
  • Integration with design tools
  • Code-free prototyping

12. JustInMind

JustInMind is a standalone tool for designing wireframes and for prototyping. This tool can build high-fidelity wireframes for web and mobile apps. You can publish your prototype in the creative process and get feedback from all project stakeholders.

Key features:

  • Add HTML, videos, online widgets, docs, interactive maps
  • Web UI elements
  • Custom UI libraries
  • UI elements for iOS and Android
  • UI libraries synchronization
  • Sketch and shapes

13. Marvel

Marvel makes it possible for designers to do designing, prototyping and also collaborate with a team. You can synchronize your designs from other tools and designs those on cloud storage. It helps designers collaborate in real time to create interactive hotspots.

Key features:

  • Usability testing
  • Share the link to send your clients by email
  • Turn your sketches into prototypes
  • Drag and drop wireframe templates
  • Realistic prototype without coding

14. DocHipo

DocHipo is an intuitive graphic design software to turn your ideas into beautiful designs in minutes. Built for marketers and content creators, the tool comes preloaded with a wide variety of professionally designed templates for infographics, posters, flyers, banners, social media graphics, and advertisements.

Key features:

  • Customize a template with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor
  • Collaborate real-time with other users while designing a document
  • Access multiple companies under one login
  • Remove background from pictures in one click
  • Resize a design into different dimensions in just one click
  • Save a design directly to Mailchimp
  • Download a design in JPG, PNG, PDF, MP4, and GIF

Having all these tools at your disposal will push you forward in your design process. I’d love to hear your thoughts on some of the tools that help you design better.

“Want to become happier at work? Stop relying on emails and switch to ProofHub!”

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Plan effectively, Collaborate seamlessly, Organize evenly and Deliver timely with ProofHub. Available at www.proofhub.com, App Store and Google Play Store.