How to Choose the Best Graphic Design Software in 15 Steps

How to choose the best graphic design software is a million-dollar question if you’re a solo entrepreneur or a graphic designer just starting with your dream project. 

Finding the perfect design tool for your creative work can feel like diving into a sea of options – one minute, you’re checking Google AI recommendations, and the next, you’re buried under a flood of flashy ads and endless features. 

It’s easy to get lost, isn’t it? Especially when these tools conveniently skip the part about whether their features are helpful for your needs.

The result? You might end up paying for an annual subscription to an overkill tool for your day-to-day tasks. But don’t worry, I’ve got your back! In this blog, I’m sharing a technical holy grail – 15 essential factors to consider before you commit to any graphic design software. 

This guide will help you clear the fog, dodge the traps, and find the one design tool that checks all your boxes. Let’s get started!

Why Do You Need Design Tools for Your Business

First, let’s understand why graphic design is important. Graphic design is more than just aesthetics – it’s a powerful way to communicate your brand’s story, capture attention, and drive engagement. 

Whether you run a small business, manage a startup, or head a large enterprise, graphic design tools are essential for creating professional marketing collaterals, social media content, visual advertisements, and presentations. Choosing the right tool ensures efficiency, consistency, and creative freedom, saving you time and money in the long run.

Just like every business is different, every design document is also distinct for its specific purpose. If you serve a particular niche, you must find the best design tool to create content for your marketing channels. Getting your hands on all the popular tools for designers won’t help you ace your creativity and marketing flexibility. 

So, how do you choose the best graphic design software? It all starts with understanding your business needs and identifying the features that align with your goals. With the right tool, you can elevate your designs and leave a lasting impression on your audience.

How to Choose the Best Graphic Design Software for Your Business

Choosing the right design tool for your business depends on several factors. From your experience level to the type of design you’ll regularly work on, you must consider every tiny detail before stretching your hand for an ideal graphic design tool. 

Therefore, you need to evaluate the following fifteen aspects to find the perfect graphic design tool for your organizational, marketing, and creative needs. 

1. Understand Your Goals and Design Needs

What’s your goal with good graphic design software? Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur, a growing startup, or a mid-sized business expanding its reach, the right tool helps you wow your audience and nail your deliverables!

For example, are you an upcoming graphic designer trying to start your own business, or do you have a team for inbound marketing and want to leverage different marketing documents for online reach? 

Do you want to create various types of graphical content for your clients? Or is it more specific, like enhancing your social media presence only? Also, you may need a graphic design tool to level up your branding and identity creation, right?

Also, understand your design needs, such as the marketing distribution channels you will use to reach your audience. It is a key point to decide before you purchase any business design tools. If you want printable designs, you are looking for posters, flyers, business cards, etc. 

If you spend your budget on digital marketing, you’ll want to focus on designs for online ads, email headers, blog graphics, social media banners, posts, etc. 

There you go. Everyone has different goals and design needs for their success stories. Some tools focus more on data visualization, like charts and graphs, and some dwell on the overall aesthetics of the design. So, be mindful of your goals and regular deliverables before choosing the right design tool.  

2. Consider Your Level of Expertise

Before deciding how to choose the best graphic design software, think about your skill level and that of your team. Are you tech-savvy early adopters who thrive on exploring new features, or do you prefer flexible, user-friendly tools that deliver quick results?

For instance, if your team includes experienced designers, a robust tool with complicated details might perfectly capture every nuance of your imagination. But if you’re a beginner or need designs done fast without a learning curve, use tools that offer simple and clutter-free UI with drag-and-drop functionality to make life easier. Matching the tool to your expertise ensures efficiency and creativity without unnecessary frustration.

3. Check the Variety and Quality of Graphics You Will Use

Different design assets, such as illustrations, stickers, icons, and animations, are the backbone of creative storytelling. Before picking the right design tool, it’s crucial to ensure the tool offers a wide variety of these elements to meet all your marketing needs. Social media posts thrive on playful stickers and icons to grab attention, while professional icons and clean illustrations add sleekness to presentations and infographics. 

Want your ads to stand out? Animations can create dynamic visuals that engage viewers instantly. Along with using different persuasive ad techniques, animated text frames and stock videos can really up your visual marketing. 

For example, imagine you’re designing a social media post for a summer sale – stickers like sunbursts and shopping carts add a vibrant touch. Or maybe you’re planning a campaign for a new app? A clean icon set communicates usability. The versatility of these assets empowers you to craft tailored designs for every purpose!

Now, many small business graphic design tools will offer different sets of graphic elements, but you have to look for two things before you choose a graphic design software.  

Do they provide exclusive design elements, or do they look similar to other vector graphics used in other graphic design tools? Of course, if you want to attract more online visitors, you need to use unique styles and high-quality customizable design assets. Also, the use of these design assets will vary depending on the document design you’re working on. So, choose a tool offering particular design assets to enhance your designs. 

4. Evaluate User Interface for the Ease of Use

The user interface (UI) of a graphic design tool plays a crucial role in determining how easily you can bring your creative ideas to life. A well-designed UI ensures seamless navigation, intuitive controls, and a clutter-free workspace, saving time and reducing frustration. Even the most advanced features can feel inaccessible if the tool’s interface is too complex or poorly organized. 

If it’s about how to choose the best graphic design software, prioritize tools with drag-and-drop functionality, clear menus, and an overall user-friendly design that accommodates both beginners and experts. A great UI helps you stay focused on creating, not troubleshooting!

5. Try to Have Sleek Templates for Various Needs

A variety of rich collection of templates is a must-have feature to look for when selecting the best graphic design software. Templates save time and eliminate the guesswork, offering ready-made designs tailored to your business needs. 

Whether you’re creating a sleek business presentation, announcing a vibrant Black Friday offer design, or an engaging music event flyer, diverse, high-quality templates ensure your work looks professional and polished. The best design tools offer templates aligned with current design trends, giving you creative freedom without starting from scratch.

6. Find the Best Collaborative Features for Your Team

Collaboration features are a must-have for modern businesses. They ensure teams can share ideas, give feedback, and work on designs in real time without delays. In a word, they boost productivity!

The big question is: How to choose design collaboration tool?

Look for multiple real-time editing to enable simultaneous contributions, commenting tools for seamless feedback, and role-based access controls to manage permissions effectively. A user-friendly interface ensures both designers and non-designers can collaborate effortlessly.

7. Look for Important Integrations for Convenient Sharing

Integrations in graphic design tools make sharing effortless! Features like direct uploads to different platforms let you deliver designs to your audience instantly. Plus, some advanced tools help gather audience data seamlessly, combining design interaction with valuable insights for your campaigns.

To share your designs directly with the world or include surveys for research, it’s essential to choose the best graphic design software wisely.

8. Look for the Latest AI Tools

Just as the printing press revolutionized the 15th century and personal computers transformed the 20th, artificial intelligence is reshaping creativity in the 21st. While adjusting to AI-powered tools may take time, they offer immense benefits by streamlining repetitive tasks like background removal, image resizing, and style consistency. This allows you to focus on intricate and creative aspects of your projects. In today’s AI-driven era, it’s crucial to evaluate which AI features align with your needs to achieve more efficient and flexible results.

9. Evaluate Different Capabilities and Customization Options

A great graphic design tool should offer customizable templates with one click on the screen, advanced editing features, and flexible color and typography options. Look for scalable graphics and free stock pictures to gain creative freedom over your design. Custom branding tools are very important to boost your branding without much hassle. 

10. Check for Various Download Options As Per Your Needs

Having various download options in a graphic design tool is essential to meeting diverse needs on a regular business day. Different projects require different formats – JPEGs or PNGs for social media, PDFs for printable materials, and MP4s for animated content. Multi-page downloads streamline workflows for presentations, reports, or e-books, saving time and ensuring consistent quality across pages.

So, when you look up the best design tools, you should explore various file formats and download options that will make your work easy. 

11. Sharing Options That Will Make Your Work Easy

Certain graphic design tools allow you to effortlessly share your creations on social media or your own website. The most advanced tools go even further by enabling you to easily embed your designs in websites, blogs, case studies, and e-books, among other marketing channels. By streamlining these processes, you can eliminate tedious tasks and free up more time to dedicate to your creative projects, allowing your artistic vision to shine.

12. Must Have Responsive Customer Support

Reliable customer support is crucial when choosing a graphic design tool. Responsive assistance ensures quick issue resolution, keeping your workflow smooth. Look for tools that offer helpful resources like tutorials and an active user community to guide you so you’re never stuck figuring things out on your own.

13. Check the Credibility of the Tool from Its Online Reviews 

Online reviews have become the modern-day word-of-mouth we all trust. Just like you wouldn’t buy a skincare product without a glowing recommendation or convincing reviews, the same goes for graphic design tools. Explore reviews on the tool’s website, Google, and other platforms to see what it truly offers and user satisfaction levels.

14. Use Free Trials to Understand the Potential of the Features

Free trials are a very popular marketing strategy for many brands. Meanwhile, the brand gets its visibility, and you, as a potential user, get a chance to explore the features to understand if it can fulfill your design needs. If you want to choose graphic design software, you should look for a free trial to get a taste of it. It’s a major step in picking the right tool that will be useful for a long time. 

15. Consider Your Budget for Marketing with Designs

Your budget plays a crucial role in choosing the right graphic design tool. As mentioned before, opt for a tool that offers flexible plans – free trials, affordable premium options, or scalable subscriptions—so you can balance quality with cost while effectively meeting your marketing needs. Smart budgeting ensures long-term value without overspending.

As I’ve discussed in the above points, choosing the best design software is an individual choice. One might need a heavy-duty graphic design tool, whereas the other may just need it for social media platforms. So, it’s you who have to evaluate all the options and features, keeping the mentioned points in mind. 

To make your job easy, I have one graphic design tool in mind that is convenient, affordable, and full of fresh accents of creative styles. Let’s explore DocHipo’s unmissable features and how you can optimize your creative and business needs with its outstanding capabilities. 

How DocHipo Stands Out as a Graphic Design Software with Its Features

It’s time to stop wondering about how to choose the best graphic design software for your business. Why? DocHipo checks all the boxes for your ideal design tool. Don’t just take my word for it – let’s dive into its coolest features that make designing as easy and enjoyable as dipping your toes in the water.

1. Perfect for Every Kind of Business and Creative Exploration

Welcome to DocHipo—the ultimate graphic design tool tailored for every commercial design style. 

With the evergrowing template categories in DocHipo, you can find every solution for any kind of design you’ve in mind – from LinkedIn posts to LinkedIn carousels,  brochures to social media posts for Instagram, Facebook, X, Pinterest, leaderboard, and large rectangle ads for your website!

Additionally, formats such as resumes, Zoom backgrounds, Facebook ads, Instagram stories, Twitter ads, and banners make their presence known without needing a mention!

2. Well-organized and Rich Library of Templates across Industries and Occasions

When it comes to quality templates, DocHipo truly shines! Whether you love minimalist styles, bold color blocks, or cohesive illustrations, DocHipo has something to match your vision. These templates aren’t just stylish – they’re practical, too, with visual hierarchy, proper white space, lovely font pairings, and color contrast in the layouts that balance creativity and functionality. 

Check out the trendy designs, each showcasing a unique touch of aesthetics in every detail.

DocHipo’s diverse collection of templates has something special for every industry and occasion. 

Do you own a specific venture, such as a real estate business, and want to focus entirely on real estate marketing to push more leads to the bottom of the marketing funnel? 

Running a restaurant? Dive into a world of food graphics, from blog banners and posters to logos. 

Need quick educational content for admission campaigns? 

Also, get the best marketing documents for industries such as travel, beauty, and fashion in this tool. Check these videos to see how to use industry-appropriate templates in DocHipo.

Maybe you run a creative agency and need delightful designs for special occasions like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Diwali, and company events. DocHipo has you covered!

These templates save time and inspire creativity for occasions like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Diwali. They allow you to focus on customization instead of starting from scratch, making the design process faster and easier—like having a design assistant who understands your needs!

Check these videos to see how to use occasion-specific templates in DocHipo.

It’s how the extensive template library in DocHipo looks. 

Watch this video to find templates for your needs in DocHipo.

3. Customizable Design Widgets for Theme-Based Content 

When you design professional content, what you mostly need is the graphic elements that can bring your imagination to life. Hence, DocHipo offers an amazing design widget library to make your thematic design customization fast and fun. 

From minimalistic icons to story-driven illustrations, tate-tell animations, charming stickers, and cute text frames, find your cue to create never-seen-before designs with scalable and customizable design assets with the taste of rarity. 

That’s why DocHipo always focuses on creating on-theme customizable and high-quality SVG assets so you never compromise on creative uniqueness. 

Watch the video to find DocHipo’s SVG assets quickly. 

Moreover, free access to stock photos and videos with exclusive integrations within your design tool is a total game-changer! It saves you time hunting for visuals and ensures your designs look polished and professional without extra hassle.

Get your hands on countless vibrant background colors, pastel solids, blissful gradients, and gracious patterns to transform the regular canvas of the design art! Also, there’s a huge shape library with trendy, abstract, ornamental, and regular designs, unique lines, a QR Code generator, and an interactive map maker waiting for you to customize templates with buzzing aesthetics. 

4. Perfect for Both New Learners and Expert Designers

DocHipo strikes the perfect balance between simplicity and versatility, making it a go-to choice for everyone. For new learners, the convenient editor, pre-designed templates, and helpful tutorials ensure a smooth start. For expert designers, myriads of the latest customization options, diverse design assets, and professional-grade features become the arsenal for exceptional designs. 

DocHipo seamlessly adapts to your needs, whether you are exploring design for the first time or looking to streamline your workflow.

5. Ease of Navigation with User-Friendly Interface

DocHipo’s UI feels like the homecoming vibe – warm, inviting, and always return for more ease! Whether you’re a pro designer or just starting out, its simple, drag-and-drop interface feels like second nature. Everything’s organized so intuitively you’ll find what you need without breaking a sweat. From exploring rich templates to creating stunning visual storytelling, DocHipo makes it all a breeze—perfect for you to find your groove and race against deadlines. 

6. Creative Freedom to Stand Out Effortlessly 

You can easily edit text with just a few clicks. You can pick from preset fonts or upload your own custom fonts to match your brand’s vibe perfectly. Get creative with minimum effort with mixed text colors and trendy transparent text styles!

Watch the following video to edit texts in the Editor.

Select any graphic, resize, rotate, change opacity, switch up its color scheme, or even apply animation to create a completely custom look. Whether you’re designing for social media, marketing, or personal use, DocHipo gives you the editing tools to make your content uniquely yours.

Moreover, take it a step further with a user-friendly image editor. Adjust advanced measurements, change filters, and crop your pictures into fun shapes to elevate your design game. Change the opacity of the graphic elements, add borders, shadows, or blur effects to accentuate your magical touch.

Also, check out the amazing widget effects to create noticeable designs.

With all these creative features at your fingertips, DocHipo makes designing as simple or as detailed as you want—letting your creative flair shine through every project!

7. Brand Kit and Company Templates Feature for Brand Consistency 

The brand kit is a one-of-a-kind feature in DocHipo for hard-core graphic designers. As the creative leader of your brand, maintaining brand consistency across all your designs is non-negotiable. This means using core brand elements like your logo, specific fonts, exclusive color palettes, and unique visuals in every piece of content. 

With the Brand Kit, you can easily store all these assets in one place, making it simple to design something new or update existing projects without the hassle of repeating time-consuming steps. Everything you need is saved in your Brand Kit, ready for quick customization whenever inspiration strikes!

Watch the video to try brand kits in DocHipo.

Another amazing feature for maintaining brand consistency in your design is using company templates. This capability allows you to reuse the saved template and customize it according to your needs, ensuring uniformity in the standard brand design. 

Watch the video to use company templates to save time. 

8. Real-time Design Collaboration with Your Team

Full-access design collaboration is your best friend if you’re co-creating a design with a fellow designer but from different devices. It ensures seamless, real-time collaboration without any lag or misalignment, keeping your teamwork on point.

If your design is ready and you just need feedback or approval, share it with “Read Only” access. This way, you can review, comment on, and check the changes made in the design in real-time.

Watch the following video to use collaborative features in DocHipo.

Whether brainstorming with your team or finalizing edits, everyone can contribute simultaneously without missing a beat. The best thing is that you have a small notification toggle that shows the names of your team members for every element they manage. 

Watch the video to understand how this cool feature can change how you work in a team.

9. Integration with Popular Tools for Easy Access

DocHipo has a few popular integrations that save you time and allow you to deliver your design more easily!

1. MailChimp

If you use MailChimp as your email marketing tool, then using DocHipo as your content design tool will give you an extra edge in streamlining your marketing goals. With this integration, you can directly save all your designs in MailChimp so that you don’t have to shift between two tools when it comes to delivering epic emails with beautiful graphics. 

Watch the video to use MailChimp integration with DocHipo.

2. Jotform

Jotform is a great marketing integration tool. Suppose you shared a pitch deck with your clients and added a Jotform to remind them to contact you or for a special sign. Just because of this integration in DocHipo, you directly reap the benefits of adding a conversion-based form in your design as a smart CTA that no one can ignore. 

Watch the vidoe to use Jotform in DocHipo.

3. Typeform

Similar to Jotform, DocHipo integrates with Typeform, which allows you to add any kind of form to your design. 

Check the video for more information on this integration. 

10. Advanced AI Tools for Quicker Designs 

One pearl of wisdom if you listen to me: Whether you’re a beginner exploring creativity or a pro perfecting your craft, AI capabilities supercharge your design process—saving time, boosting precision, and unlocking endless possibilities! Why stick to the old grind when AI can turn your vision into stunning visuals in just a few clicks?

1. Advanced AI Writer

DocHipo presents an advanced AI writer tool that can create any content with simple prompts. How can this AI capability help you meet your everyday deadlines? Well, are you running out of ideas for the perfect social media copy or don’t know how to put an effective CTA in your Facebook Ad?

 Try AI Writer; give simple prompts that describe what kind of copy and the type of copy you want to have with word limitations, and then set the right tone, like professional, exciting, friendly, or other elevating tones that marketers use. Then, you have your new copy with unmatched persuasion and creativity within seconds. 

Watch the short video to learn more about DocHipo’s AI Writer.

2. Amazing Text-to-Image AI Tool

You’ll love the AI image generator, which brings your imagination to life in stunning styles. Simply provide a detailed description – whether it’s an image, logo, or illustration—choose a style like sketch, cartoon, oil painting, realistic, or 3D, and watch it create incredible visuals in just minutes!

Watch the YouTube video to learn more about the Text-to-Image AI tool in DocHipo.

3. AI Translator for Global Marketing 

DocHipo’s AI translator, which supports 100+ languages, effortlessly takes your design marketing global. It helps you localize content, breaking language barriers to connect with diverse audiences. Whether you’re creating ads, social media posts, or brochures, translating your designs ensures they resonate with regional markets, boosting engagement and expanding your brand’s reach worldwide.

Watch the following video to use this feature.

4. One-Click AI Background Remover

The AI background remover in DocHipo makes designing effortless by instantly removing your subject, saving you time and effort. Whether you’re creating professional headshots, e-commerce product photos, or dynamic social media posts, this tool delivers clean, polished results. 

Use it to replace backgrounds, add custom designs, or create transparent images for versatile marketing materials. It’s perfect for beginners and pros alike who want to level up their visuals in a snap!

Watch the video to use it without any effort.

11. Versatile Download and Sharing Options

Now, your design is ready – it’s time to download it in the perfect format! With DocHipo, you can choose from options like PNG, JPEG, transparent PNG, GIF, and MP4. But why so many choices, you ask? Each file format serves a specific purpose based on your document’s needs. Let me break it down for you.

There are different needs for different content, right? For example, PNGs are great for sharp web graphics, while JPEGs keep your photos high-quality but lightweight. Transparent PNGs are perfect for logos or overlays, GIFs add fun animations for social media, and MP4s create dynamic videos for ads and reels. Choosing the right format ensures your designs look polished and work flawlessly across platforms!

The best part is that downloading documents in DocHipo is very easy. 

Create the highest-quality content and effortlessly share it via mail or publish it on social media and websites. 

Even give your followers access to a preview or a complete download by controlling the publishing access.

12. Flexible Pricing Plans for All Business Sizes

This graphic design tool understands that every business is unique, so it offers flexible pricing plans to suit all business sizes—from solo entrepreneurs to growing enterprises. Whether you’re starting small or scaling up, there’s a plan designed just for you.

1. Free Plans for Trial

Still, trying to figure out if DocHipo is the right fit? Try it risk-free with its forever-free plan! It’s perfect for testing the waters, exploring the free features, and creating stunning designs with numerous free templates without any upfront cost. 

You can explore millions of free stock photos and videos with many preset fonts and free design assets to enjoy creative freedom without paying any credits.

2. Premium Plans for Every Business Size

DocHipo caters to businesses of all sizes, whether you’re a startup with a small team or a mid-sized company with growing design needs. The Pro plan is available for solopreneurs and small teams at just $7.5 per user annually, offering all the essentials. 

Need extensive collaboration with unlimited users? The Pro Unlimited plan is available for $225/month annually and is designed to handle larger-scale requirements effortlessly.

3. Long-Term Viability

Worried about committing? With DocHipo, it’s easy to switch between plans as your business requirements change. Whether you need to scale up or streamline, our plans ensure you stay equipped with the tools you need without the hassle.

DocHipo’s pricing options are built for growth and flexibility, making it your trusted design partner for the long haul.

With its outstanding customization options, stunning design assets, powerful AI capabilities, and seamless collaboration and branding features, it elevates your projects to new heights. Don’t miss out on this all-in-one solution that enhances your productivity and creativity.

Get started with DocHipo right now!

Bottom Line

How to choose the best graphic design tool? From exploring the free graphic design software options to finding the perfect graphic design tools for beginners, I’ve covered every aspect that plays an important role—from convenience and features to pricing. Hopefully, this blog helps you pick the right tool to match your design needs.

If you’re looking for advanced yet flexible design features, give DocHipo a try! Sign up for free and discover a treasure trove of stunning aesthetics tailored to every business purpose.

FAQ

What software is good for graphic design? 

Any graphic design software that helps you to  create designs effortlessly with intuitive UI, enough creative freedom with template customization options and offers loads of free templates to design with is a good graphic design tool. If you are looking for something similar, use DocHipo that’ has all the modern and convenient qualities of a design tool that needs zero learning curve. 

What is the primary tool for graphic design?

DocHipo is the primary tool for heavy and business-specific graphic design materials. 

What is the easiest graphic design software to use?

DocHipo is considered one of the easiest graphic design tools, offering user-friendly templates and drag-and-drop features that are great for beginners.

Do small businesses need graphic design?

Yes, small businesses need graphic design to create a strong brand identity, marketing materials, and social media content that stands out and attracts customers.

How much do businesses spend on graphic design?

For small businesses, the cost of graphic design services typically ranges from around $80 to $5,000 or more, depending on your needs and project scope.

Which business needs graphic design?

Graphic design is essential for businesses across industries – whether you’re in retail, real estate, tech, or hospitality. It helps create logos, ads, social media posts, and more to enhance branding and engagement.