Creating a design for your next email campaign or social media image shouldn’t require a graphic design degree or a pricey design program. Sometimes, you want a quick DIY option, instead of consulting with the design department and waiting for the finished product.
With 32% of marketers saying visual images are the most important content form for their business, you need the tools to create the graphics yourself. And considering most of the top design sites have become pretty intuitive, there’s no excuse not to use them.
More from PostFunnel on design:
Visual Linings Playbook
Why Customers Don’t View Package Design the Same Way Anymore
The Passenger Car Is Dying. “Emotional Design” Might Save It
Check out these five DIY graphic and design sites anyone can use.
1. Canva
Canva implements the drag-and-drop design tools you’ll find on many of these types of platforms. It offers template designs for print, social media, documents, ad, event materials, and more. You can also create your own design by setting custom dimensions.
Once you’ve finished your creation, you can download the file or publish it on social media pages, file-storage sites, PowerPoint, chat platforms, and other sites.
Plan options and costs
Canva: Their free plan comes with 1 GB of storage, more than 8,000 templates, and two folders to organize designs.
Canva Pro: Their mid-level plan is $12.95/month ($9.95/month when paid annually). In addition to the free features, it has unlimited folders and photo storage, team functionality, access to 400,000 free photos/templates, export as GIFs, and priority support.
Canva Enterprise: Designed for teams with 20 or more members, this custom-priced plan also comes with team administrative controls, onboarding incentives, dedicated account manager, and a 99.9% uptime SLA.
2. Easil
If you’re interested text effects, Easil has some great tools you won’t find on every other design site. Their text, templates, and images customization options, make this software stand out.
Its Brand Kit stores your brand’s colors, fonts, logos, and any other imagery, keeping it all in one place for easy access. Their templates can be resized with the drag-and-drop Resize Tool, so you only have to create one design for multiple usages. And if you happen to be located in Australia, you can also take advantage of their full-service printing house.
Plan options and costs
Basic: The free plan has editable templates, graphic elements, stock image range, text effects, and organize with layers and groups.
Plus: For $7.50/month per user, the plan adds GIF creation, more than 7,500 templates, download transparent PNG files, save color palettes for the brand, save templates for teams, organize folders and tags, and download print-quality PDFs.
Edge: It has more than 15,000 templates, including industry-tailored templates, and priority support — in addition to the features of the other plans. The plan is $59/month per user.
3. Stencil
With more than 4 million photos, icons, and graphics (not including ones you upload), Stencil combines visual elements with social media functionality. It’s integrated with Buffer, so you can create an image for a social media post and schedule it all from inside Stencil.
The design site has more than 37 common presets —for Twitter posts, Pinterest pins, and ads — or you can plug in a custom size for your design. They also have more than 100,000 quotes you can quickly access and share, perfect for a motivational social post.
Plan options and costs
Free: Allows up to 10 images to be saved a month, limited photos and icons, 50 uploaded images, up to 10 collections, 10 favorites, and 10 Instagram SMS a month.
Pro: For $15/month (or $9/month annually), it has 50 images saved/month, more than 2 million photos, 2 million icons/graphics, 825+ templates, 2,550+ Google fonts, logo/watermarks, and font uploads.
Unlimited: With unlimited save/upload images, collection creations, and favorites, this plan costs $20/month ($12/month annually).
4. Snappa
Another option with Buffer integration, Snappa’s interface is designed to make the creation process fast and easy. The toolbar at the top allows you to toggle through backgrounds, effects, text, graphics, and shapes. You can also import custom fonts to stay on brand, in addition to the 200+ available options. One of the downsides of Snappa, though, is that you can’t save designs in the free version.
Plan options and costs
Starter: The free plan allows one user and comes with more than 5,000 templates, limited HD photos and graphics, five downloads/month, and 10 favorites.
Pro: In addition to the Starter plan features, it has more than 1 million photos and graphics, unlimited downloads/month, unlimited favorites, social media sharing, Buffer integration, and custom font uploads. It costs $15/month ($10/month annually).
Team: For $30/month ($20/month annually), this plan comes with five users — along with the features from the Pro plan.
You can contact the company for a customized plan if you need more than five users.
5. Piktochart
Create infographics, presentations, reports, posters, and flyers using the different formats and templates in Piktochart. This design site is more focused on internal materials like employee handbooks, business reports, event materials, and infographics than the other options on this list.
Plan options and costs
Free: The free plan has access to all of their templates, icons, and images. There are also download and social-share options for finished images.
Pro: For $29/month ($24.17/month annually), it allows 1 GB image uploads, HD image exports, Watermark removal, password protection visuals, custom color schemes, custom fonts, and folders.
Pro Team: In addition to the Pro features, it has team template customization, annotated commenting, roles/permissions, project sharing, design collaboration, and more image upload space. It’s $99/month ($82.50/month annually) for five users, but the number of users can be adjusted — along with the cost.
There are lower-cost plans available for nonprofit organizations, educators, and students.
Whether you’re in need of a social media banner or an infographic for your landing page, design requires different tools than the rest of the department. You don’t need an art background and a monster budget, however, to create unique, professional-grade graphics. Check any of these five options for easy, DIY assets anyone on your marketing team can use.
