Tools + Resources for Digital Designers

How toToolsDesign
Written By drypdesigns

Creative tools and resources for online businesses, graphic designers, and digital marketers. All resources are used by me to create, edit, enhance + present everything found on drypdesigns, and that are used for branding, digital marketing, social media, website design, photo-editing, and inspiration.

  • Some of the links include affiliate links.

QUICK MENU

Graphic Design Apps/Software

  • Canva, Adobe Creative Cloud, Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Adobe Express

Product Research + Management

  • eRank, EtsyHunt, Alura, Vela

Free Design Assets

 

Graphic Design Software

 

Canva

Canva is an amazing all-in-one graphic design app platform, used to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents, and other visual content. I use Canva for putting together my designs and presenting products with mockups and more. The app includes thousands of free templates for users to use and to get inspired by. The platform is free to use and offers paid subscriptions like Canva Pro and Canva for Enterprise for additional functionality.

Free Canva Templates

Adobe Creative Cloud

I cannot recommend Adobe software enough it’s seriously the best and most advanced there is!

Learn more here

There is an entire collection of innovative Adobe creative design tools for desktop and mobile devices. Enhance and perfect your photos with Photoshop and Lightroom. Create logos, graphics, and icons with Illustrator. Produce printed documents like postcards, flyers, posters, and magazines and business material like business cards, brochures, and reports with InDesign. Design and publish websites with Dreamweaver, and create prototypes of mobile apps with Adobe XD. Make stunning videos for film, TV, and the web.

My FAV Creative Cloud Apps are:

  • Photoshop, Lightroom, Express, Illustrator

 

Adobe Photoshop

  • Part of Adobe Creative Cloud Plan

  • Used for creating + enhancing designs, you can create anything you can imagine

  • Advanced Photo & Graphic Editing Software

  • Free mobile/iPad apps also available

  • Learn more here

Adobe Lightroom

  • Free Mobile App + Subscription Upgrades

  • Professional Organizing + Editing Software for all photos

  • Compatible between Adobe platforms

  • Various different settings to transform + share any photo

  • Learn more here

 

Adobe Illustrator

Graphic design application. Digital designers use Illustrator to create vector graphics. Vector images and graphics are made of points, lines, shapes, and curves based on mathematical formulas rather than a set amount of pixels, and therefore can be scaled up or down without losing image quality.

 

ADOBE PREMIERE RUSH

 Edit. Share. Do it all with the video editing app for creating and sharing online.

  • Video Editing Mobile App

  • Advanced video editing for mobile devices and desktop

  • Add brand logo & save preset effects

  • Easily resize, split/crop, edit speed, and adjust the volume

  • Import Lightroom photos

  • Export options

  • Learn more here

 

ADOBE EXPRESS

  • Comparable to Canva

  • free plan includes thousands of unique templates, design assets, Adobe Stock royalty-free photos, and more. Available on web and mobile.

  • Many templates to inspire ideas and creativity

  • Used for social media content creation – graphics, video, animation, & collages

  • Ability to resize and share work

  • Integrated, brand management tool for fast, easy access to logos, fonts, and colors

  • Upload & Edit lightroom photo albums

  • Upload icons & stock photos from Pixabay & Unsplash

  • Sign up here

 

Adobe Color

  • Create color palettes from images

  • Create gradients from images

  • Download color palettes

  • Learn more here

Figma

Figma is a cloud-based UI designing and prototyping tool, which allows multiple teams to collaborate on creating, testing, and deploying interface or product designs. Features include version history, project management, commenting, user-based permissions, plugin creation, and single sign-on (SSO).

Sign up for a free Figma account

Product Research + Management

 

eRank

  • Trend Research

  • Product & Keyword Research

  • Etsy Shop Analyzer

    • Listing Audit

    • Product Tag Analyzer

Alura

  • Trend Research

  • Product & Keyword Research

  • Etsy Shop Analyzer

    • Listing Audit

    • Product Tag Analyzer

EtsyHunt

  • Free tool to help Etsy sellers with product research, keyword scout, and review management

  • Helps to improve Etsy SEO and store visibility

  • Learn More Here

Vela

  • Paid inventory tool used for Shopify + Etsy listings

  • Allows you to bulk edit multiple product listings at the same time

  • Directly sink to and from Etsy and Shopify

  • Copy paste products between stores

  • Add/edit photos

  • Edit product descriptions, categories, and tags

  • and more!

Free Design Assets

 

free stock photos, templates + other creative assets

social marketing
+ content scheduling

 

Planoly

Planable

  • bright, clean & pretty interface

  • Efficient features

  • Visualize your IG grid — drag & drop

creative tools for social sharing + inspiration

tiktok

  • Free Mobile Social Media Platform

  • Easy to learn, use, and grow

  • Innovative features to boost creativity

  • Search and connect by niches

  • The easiest way to get niche-specific organic reach

  • Ideal for personal brands

behance + dribble + pinterest

  • Free Mobile App

  • Social Network for sharing the content you create

  • Get inspired by other’s work

  • Like, comment, create artboards of your styles

  • Dribble is another social content-sharing site

creative tools for management & organization

Milanote

  • An easy-to-use tool to organize your ideas and projects into visual boards. Add notes, images, links and files, organize them visually and share

  • For laying out content and organizing design projects

  • Available in web browser, desktop app, and mobile app

  • Sign up for a free account here

google docs + google sheets + google slides

  • Part of Google Drive – free to use

  • Templates available for presentations, planning, inventory, & more.

google analytics + google search console

  • Analytics + other important data

drypdesigns https://www.drypdesigns.com
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