It’s said that most skilled workers are only as good as the tools that they use, and graphic design is certainly no exception.
It’s one thing to learn all of the skills and acquire the necessary certifications, but without a variety of handy tools available, actually jumping in and creating works of design is impossible.
Thankfully, with modern technologies and software, we have a choice of a number of powerful tools designed to make graphic design as easy as possible. Let’s take a look at some of the more popular tools that no graphic design artist should be without.
The Right Computer
It might seem that any laptop or desktop computer can do the job, and it’s more than possible to use any laptop for graphic design. But there are some computers that are better than others for this job, with Microsoft’s Surface being one of the best on the market.
Apple, too, has a range of devices that can help the graphic designer create and experiment with. The hardware will usually need to be fairly powerful, and it’s why the Surface tends to come with a big price tag. But with powerful specs, a great touchscreen, as well as stylus support, there are few better computers around for this kind of work.
Storage Options
The work that a designer does is truly original, and if it’s loss due to a computer failure, it might mean that hundreds of hours of work suddenly disappear. That’s why a designer will want to make sure they have plenty of backup options.
The cloud is one of the most obvious choices, as it means being able to save data to a third party server that can be accessed anywhere in the world. Having local backups is highly recommended, so investing in a large external hard drive or SSD is usually worth it. Make sure to use backup software to do backups at the end of every day if possible.
Software
When it comes to software, the options are generally a bit limited, depending on what the user is willing to work with. Adobe is at the top of the pile when it comes to design software, such as with their Photoshop program that has become the gold standard. But there are other options, too.
Krita is an open-source Photoshop alternative that has seen lots of growth in recent years and makes for a competent choice that can do much of what Photoshop can do. Krita is most often used on GNU/Linux distributions, some of which offer great hardware support specifically aimed at graphic designers, regardless of whether it’s for a news piece or the latest online pokies NZ has to offer.
Graphics Repos
Another great tool that a designer can make use of is graphics repos.
These are repositories of different images, GIFs, and other formats that are often published with a public licence, making them free to use and distribute. It’s always a good idea to stay on top of these kinds of repos as much as possible to make full use of the material they have on offer.