Introduction

As we web designers are aware, having access to software that helps us create is essential, whether it’s creating website mockups, designing graphics, or finding a color palette, these tools are assets. Unfortunately, many of these tools that are needed to create high-quality designs are under paywalls, which we all can’t afford, so in my blog, I’m going to be sharing some web design tools that are free and can be used to design high-quality graphics.

Hello, I’m Samir Magar. In my blog, I’ll be sharing five free high-quality web design tools that have personally helped me in my four years of web design. These tools range from helping you pick a color palette to helping you design actual website mockups. I hope that these tools will be able to help you create projects.

Coolors

Coolors is a color palette generator that is very easy to use, it helps designers find and apply color schemes for their projects. Color palettes are a lot more important than you might think, they set the mood of projects and enhance the general user experience.

Key Features: 

• Color Palette Generation
• Adjusting colors (Hues, Saturation, Brightness)
• Extracting Colors from images
• Contrast Checker
• Saving and exporting palettes

Figma

Figma is a design tool that’s actually created for web developers and designers. It mainly allows you to create initial/concept designs for projects, but you can also create full-out designs if you know how to use them. Personally, I’ve seen most people use it to create website mock-ups. You can share and edit projects in real-time with partners as well.

Key Features: 

• WEB & Cloud-based
• Collaborative
• Usable elements & vectored
• Plugins
• Design Systems & Libraries

Pixlr

Pixlr is also a design tool like Figma, but it has two types, one being Pixlr X, which is used for simple editing, such as pictures, brightness, etc, and the other one being Pixlr E, which is used for more advanced editing, such as creating graphics from scratch. This web application is very similar to a mix of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. 

Key Features: 

• Multiple editing modes
• AI-powered Tools
• Layers, blending, masks & selection tools
• Cloud & WEB based
• Cross-platform

Canva

Canva, like Pixlr, is also a more design-focused tool, but unlike Pixlr, Canva is much easier to use, it provides many templates ranging from 4k videos to PowerPoints to resumes. Canva is highly customizable, it’s super easy to create complex designs there without having to have advanced design skills. It’s primarily used among designers for social media graphics, presentations, business cards, and posters.

Key Features: 

• Drag and drop designs
• Design Systems & Libraries
• Collaborative
• AI-powered tools
• Mobile & WEB compatibility

Pixabay

Having high-quality images for websites is detrimental to user experience but it isn’t always easy. Pixabay is a free stock photo platform that provides high-quality images and videos for free. All of its media is licensed by Pixabay and is under free use so it can be used without any problems.

Key Features: 

• Massive Media Library
• Easy to use with advanced search & filters
• Free for all uses
• Stock videos, Sounds & Music
• 4k Videos
• Vector graphics and illustrations

Conclusion

As web designers, having access to design tools that can help create high-quality projects is vital, but with the majority of these tools being hidden by a paywall, it’s limiting the creativity of potential web designers. In my blog, I hope that the free tools I covered, Coolors, Figma, Pixlr, Canva, and Pixabay can help other future web designers as they helped me. Each of these tools brings unique and valuable assets for both beginners and experienced designers, so I hope that if you need them, you can take these tools’ recommendations and apply them to your future projects.