Top 10 Illustration Tools Every Designer Should Use for Creative Designs

In today's world, art, drawings, paintings, and illustrations are often viewed as aesthetic experiences. As humans have evolved, they have begun to appreciate the beauty in art, often admiring a painting or illustration purely for its aesthetic value.

Including illustrations or artwork on a website can have a powerful impact on the audience, captivating their attention and drawing them in. Art can also help to emphasize the point of the content and complement the written material. To ensure that the images are effective, it's important to choose illustrations that are meaningful to the target audience. Ultimately, incorporating art into a website or other forms of communication can be a powerful tool for engaging and connecting with viewers.

Creating illustrations is a crucial aspect of visual communication, whether you're a graphic designer, a digital artist, or an animator. But with so many illustration tools available, it can be difficult to know which ones to choose. Each tool has its own unique features and benefits, and selecting the right one can make all the difference in the quality and efficiency of your work.

In this blog, we'll take a look at some of the best illustration tools available, and explore their strengths and weaknesses to help you make an informed decision on which tool is best suited for your needs. This guide will help you find the perfect illustration tool to bring your creative ideas to life.

Best Illustration Software Tools In 2023:

Below are listed some of the best illustration software tools every designer should use to make creative illustrations easily.

1. Adobe Illustrator
2. Canva
3. Affinity Designer
4. Procreate
5. Inkscape
6. Krita
7. Corel Painter
8. Clip Studio Paint
9. Adobe Photoshop CC
10. CorelDRAW

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is a professional vector graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. It is used by graphic designers, artists, and illustrators to create vector-based graphics, such as logos, icons, illustrations, and typography.

Adobe Illustrator gives its users 2D or 3D graphics manipulation for achieving increased efficiency in the designer's workflow. Both the designers, including professional graphic designers and digital designers, can use Adobe Illustrator to create different types of attractive digital products.

‌‌Adobe keeps its features exciting as well as flexible in Illustrator. These features include easy image cropping, variable fonts, the experience of the modern user, stability enhancements, stylist sets to texts, and faster creation of documents. It also has many more features, which makes it the best and a handy tool for digital and graphic designers.

Pricing Details:

Canva

Canva is a cloud-based graphic design platform that allows users to create a wide range of visual content, including social media graphics, presentations, posters, logos, designing t-shirts, web designing, and other marketing materials. It was founded in 2012 by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams and has since grown to become a popular tool for businesses and individuals around the world. It's so easy to use that, even if you have no experience with it, it will help you with graphic design with its drag and drop feature.

‌‌This platform provides you with a lot of options to select images, backgrounds, fonts, and templates to make your work easier. Canva offers many things to use for free. Canva is doing great as it can work with a large number of industries, all credits to its numerous templates.

Pricing Details:

Top 10 Paid Stock Image Websites you should Checkout

Finding the best quality stock images is quite difficult, so here are Top 10 Paid Stock Image Websites you should Checkout.

StartupTalkyPratyusha Srivastava

Affinity Designer

Affinity Designer is a professional vector graphics editor developed by Serif, a UK-based software company. Affinity Designer is a great choice for projects which are of personal use. Novice graphic designers also use it due to its intuitive user interface. It is the product that can give a tough competition to Adobe Illustrator. This is because Affinity Designer has a varied suite of tools and user-friendly features.

Affinity Designer is designed for creating vector-based graphics, such as logos, illustrations, and typography. It offers a wide range of tools and features, including pen and pencil tools, shape creation tools, color and gradient controls, and typography tools.

One of the unique features of Affinity Designer is its ability to switch between vector and raster modes seamlessly, allowing users to work with both types of images in the same document. It also offers support for multiple artboards, allowing users to work on multiple designs in the same document.

‌‌It is tailor-made for users who want to accommodate a budget-friendly alternative without compromising functionality. It boasts 1,000,000% zoom, which puts it easily in the CAD realm. This platform supports various formats, including RGB, CMYK, and ICC.

Pricing Details:

Note: Licenses for businesses and educational institutions are also available on request.

Procreate

Procreate is a popular digital painting and illustration app designed exclusively for use on iPads and iPhones. It offers a wide range of tools and features that allow artists to create detailed and realistic artwork using digital brushes, pencils, and other tools. The app has gained a large following among artists, illustrators, and designers, thanks to its intuitive interface, powerful set of tools, and ability to create high-quality, print-ready artwork.

Some of Procreate's key features include layer support, customizable brushes, 4K canvas resolution, and support for a variety of file formats. It is a powerful tool for both hobbyists and professionals looking to create digital artwork on the go.

Pricing Details:

Procreate is a paid app that can be purchased for a one-time fee of $12.99 on the App Store.

Best Tools to Remove Image Background | Features & Pricing

Here is a List of Best Image Background Removal Tools like Adobe Photoshop, Crello, CorelDraw & others to help you remove background from images.

StartupTalkyAnsh Mehrey

Inkscape

Inkscape is a free, open-source vector graphics editor that is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. It is designed for creating and editing vector-based graphics, such as logos, illustrations, diagrams, and technical drawings. Inkscape uses Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) as its native file format and supports other common file formats, such as EPS, PDF, PNG, and JPEG.

Inkscape offers a wide range of tools and features, including the ability to create paths, shapes, text, and gradients, as well as support for layers and object grouping. It also includes a variety of filters and effects, such as blurs, shadows, and transparency.

Pricing Details:

Inkscape is FREE and Open Source Software.

Krita

Krita is a free, open-source digital painting and illustration software that is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. It is designed for artists, designers, and other creative professionals who want to create digital artwork using a wide range of tools and features.

Krita offers a comprehensive set of painting and drawing tools, including brushes, pencils, and pens, as well as support for layers, masks, and color management. It also includes a variety of features for creating animations, such as frame management and timeline editing. These features make Krita a popular choice for creating high-quality digital artwork and animations.

Pricing Details:

Krita is FREE and Open Source Software.

Top 11 YouTube Channels to Learn Graphic Design for Free

YouTube is a great resource for learning graphic design. The top channels for learning graphic design are The Futur, Satori Graphics, and more.

StartupTalkyPrakash Mishra

Corel Painter

‌‌Corel Painter is a digital painting software that allows artists to create digital artwork that emulates the look and feel of traditional media such as oils, watercolors, charcoal, and pastels. It is designed for professional artists, graphic designers, and illustrators who want to create high-quality, expressive digital paintings and illustrations.

Corel Painter provides you with a wider range of tools with materials and traditional artists. With the help of a mouse and tablet, the designer will be able to create the effect of a real painting or drawing medium such as color pencil, oil, charcoal, watercolor, and chalk.

‌‌Some non-traditional features, like F/X, Distortion, pattern pens, and image hose, give designers a free hand to apply less conventional elements to an image. Corel Painter imitates traditional media's visual characteristics and functions such as charcoal, oil paint, pastel sticks, airbrush, and felt pens.

Pricing Details:

Top 15 Easy-to-Use Design Tools for Non Designers in 2023

Are you a non-designer looking to create professional-looking designs? Here are 15 DIY design tools to help you transform ideas into visuals.

StartupTalkyMahenoor Mansuri

Clip Studio Paint

‌‌Clip Studio Paint is a multi-purpose digital painting software that comes with vector graphics. It is widely used by illustrators, comic artists, and animators to create high-quality digital art, comics, and animations. It is quite ideal for inking and rendering with the help of its useful and unique functions. Clip Studio's asset library enables the designers to test the emerging concepts, create sketches using foliage brushes, and create sketches using pattern textures.

‌‌It has characters or items that are 3D models and backgrounds, which would give pose and angle and further helps as a visual preference. It also comes at a competitive price, making it affordable for the designers. It gives a free hand to the artists to draw crisp lines using brushes, movie concepts, or organize games by creating thumbnail grids. It also applies color variations to images or artwork layers.

Overall, Clip Studio Paint is a versatile and powerful digital art software that offers a range of tools and features for artists of different styles and disciplines.

Pricing Details:

Top Logo Design Trends | 2021 Logo Trends

A company’s logo represents the brand. Lets know about logo design trends that are popular in 2021. Here are listed some trending logo patterns.

StartupTalkyRia Puneyani

Adobe Photoshop CC

Adobe Photoshop is a popular software application for digital image editing and graphic design. ‌‌Adobe Photoshop was programmed in 1988, and from then, it has become a major part of a designer's life. Adobe Photoshop is a versatile and great platform for the efficient creation of patterns and prints to make your result one of the best in the world of designing. And those who are into graphic designers have numerous options, tools, and cool settings for creating new opportunities for you.

‌‌It helps you create designs that are authentic and cherished to the eyes that too with proper guidance. It helps mostly in building your confidence while designing. There are many new insights to enjoy here.

Photoshop offers a wide range of tools and features to support different types of image editing and design, including layers, masks, filters, and various drawing and painting tools. It also includes features for working with 3D graphics, video, and animation.

Pricing Details:

Adobe Express

Photoshop Plan

Adobe’s success story | Revenue | Business Model | Company Profile |

Adobe is an American software company founded by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. Know more about it’s business model, revenue, success story etc.

StartupTalkySarika Anand

CorelDRAW

CorelDRAW is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Corel Corporation. It is widely used for creating logos, illustrations, technical drawings, and other types of vector-based graphics.

CorelDRAW provides a great graphics editing platform that can churn out both vector as well as raster graphics. It comes with a version of Corel Paint software which is free. It is included with Corel Paint to give you a helping hand for the creation of the upcoming raster illustrations.

CorelDRAW offers a wide range of tools and features to support different types of vector graphics design and layout, including shape tools, text tools, color palettes, and object styles. It also includes support for raster graphics, allowing users to work with both vector and raster elements in the same project.

‌‌It's better to have a lot of variations in illustrations and the latest version, which even supports the famous apple pen. It also allows the designers to edit vector as well as raster graphics with various kinds of tools and some of the custom brushes. Indeed, it's not as efficient as Adobe Photoshop, yet it's still one of the great illustration tools in the industry.

Pricing Details:

Career Options in Design Industry in India

The design industry in India is growing at the rate of 25%. Here are some of career options if you want to pursue Design Industry.

StartupTalkyPV Vyshnavi

Conclusion

We saw how the evolution took place from the caves to our phones and laptops or desktops. But this is not the end because evolution keeps going and has no endpoint. With growing technology, illustration software is enhancing its design-making capability.

The world of illustration tools is vast and diverse, offering an array of powerful software options to suit the specific needs of artists, designers, and other creative professionals. Whether you're looking for a robust vector graphics editor or a digital painting software, there are plenty of options to choose from.

Ultimately, the best illustration tool for you will depend on a variety of factors, including your specific skillset, artistic style, and the type of work you're creating. By choosing the right illustration tool, you can unlock your creative potential and bring your unique artistic vision to life.

FAQs

What is digital illustration?

Digital illustration is an art with the use of digital tools, such as a mouse or tablet, in combination with drawing software.

What are illustration tools?

Illustration tools are software applications or physical mediums that are used to create visual representations of an idea or concept.

What are the top Illustration tools for designers?

Some of the top illustrators for designers to use are:

• Adobe Illustrator
• Canva
• Affinity Designer
• Corel Painter
• Clip Studio Paint
• Adobe Photoshop CC
• Corel Draw

Which illustration tool is best for beginners?

For beginners, we recommend starting with a user-friendly tool such as Procreate or Sketch. These tools have a range of brushes and features that make it easy for beginners to create stunning illustrations without a steep learning curve.

What is the difference between vector graphics and digital painting?

Vector graphics are created using mathematical equations and can be scaled without losing quality. Digital painting, on the other hand, is created using brushes and can mimic traditional media such as oil, watercolor, and pastels.

Can I use illustration tools for animation?

Yes, many illustration tools such as Adobe Illustrator and Procreate have features that allow for animation. However, for more complex animations, you may need to use specialized animation software.

Is CorelDraw free?

CorelDraw leading graphic design software suite is free of charge for 15 days trail.

What is Adobe Illustrator used for?

Adobe Illustrator is a design app that is used for creating logos, icons, drawings, typography, and various illustrations.

Is Clip Studio Paint free?

First time users of a monthly usage plan can use Clip Studio Paint for up to 3 months free of charge.