Keeping creatives sharp and interested in what they’re doing is something a lot of businesses out there are having a hard time understanding. Yes, they are basically being paid to do their job, but a creative can only go so far with a limited set of tools and skill.
Artistic people tend to burn out quicker than normal folk. So once they start feeling that they’ve been doing something in repeat for some time, they’d start feeling bored and when that happens, their output also gets affected. And if you’re a company that has a good idea of user experience and using that to optimise your site, an output that’s on or below average won’t do.
You’ll need to have them perform at their very best. Acquiring new skills can also happen once you’ve got access to these tools.
The crowd favorite, Adobe Photoshop is targeted at artists, photographers and graphic designers. This enables the user to design websites, posters, mobile apps and all those cool banners.
For photographers, this app can offer you tools that you can use to enhance your photos and give them a bit more punch.
You can also create and enhance 3d illustrations and works of art.
GIMP is a free open source image editing software that comes with a whole arsenal of features that can give most of the popular image editing software in its category a run for its money. This is like the online version of the software we all have to download and buy out on the net.
With GIMP, you can fine tune images and photographs. All these image enhancement tools gives you the option to really make the banners on your website stand out and not look like stock images.
CorelDraw is a rich feature application that, like our previous items above, helps you get those stunning images, designs and all the best graphic designs for your website.
A unique feature of this software is the ease of usage. You can start working with this application and you instantly get a tool that you can use straight up and can easily blend with your current workflow.
Blender is actually something I personally use. This is a free and open source 3d graphics software, that is best used for animated films and arts. I’ve used it however for videos mostly. Yes, this can be used for images and videos. It’s a little harder to use for video editing, but give it time to warm up to you and you’ll get the hang of it.
The 3d image side of Blender comes with excellent modeling tools, which can be used to create, edit and transform models.
Inkscape is mostly known for its unique ability to easily help you create vectors. It gives you access to a wide selection of vector editing tools that are very handy for your graphic designers that create infographics for example.
You can’t keep stealing and borrowing vectors from the internet. You got to one day create your own.
You can also use this tool to manipulate graphic aspects such as shapes, texts, gradients and transparency effects.
By the way, this app is (weirdly) completely free.
If you’re looking for a painting tool you can use to create illustrations that are inspired by anime, PaintTool SAI is the software for you.
This has an easy-to-use interface, and a lot of tools that are not confusing to use. And this is a big plus that sets it apart from all its contemporaries.
With its extreme and edgy name, ArtRage is designed to be useful both for traditional and graphic artists out there. Not only that, it’s so user friendly that it can be easily used by novice digital artists, amateurs up to the professional artists.
This tool can help you come up with traditional artworks, graphic designs and the most exciting, video game and movie concept art.
Serif DrawPlus X8 is another vector editing tool that’s very simple and has an easy-to-use interface. This can be a perfect software to learn and use to create logos and other important images.
This tool has the ability to help you eliminate unneeded elements in your design at the same time enabling you to add details to your shapes and images.
These are just some of the best sets of tools and software out there that can keep both the flames of creativity and interest alive for your graphic artists.
