Design and visual branding are a huge part of what attract customers to your organization. That’s why simply stating your company name when introducing yourself to a prospective client isn’t as effective as wearing a custom polo with your logo embroidered on it, for example.
The reason for this is that the brain processes images faster than verbal information. When people hear information, they’ll retain 10% of it, but if an image is paired with the information, people will retain 65% of it.
But while visual branding is important, not everyone is a Photoshop whiz and some teams may not have the capacity to hire a graphic designer for their branding needs.
Never fear. Online design apps are here, and they are quick and easy-to-use too! Using these tools, you can create stunning visuals for your business even if you failed your high school art class.
Here we’ve rounded up some of the best online tools to help you create attractive branding, logos, and custom apparel designs for your business, team, school, or organization.
1 - Logo Garden
This free logo generator makes it easy to create a professional-looking logo in minutes. They have thousands of icons and simple tools to add colours and fonts to your design. They also provide high resolution as well as vector files for you to download directly from the site. How awesome is that? LogoGarden also has a team of professional graphic designers who can create a logo for you with up to 3 revisions. And what’s the cost of this great service? Only 39.99! Now that’s a steal.
2 - Canva
Canva is one of our marketing team’s favourite tools for creating social media graphics with its thousands of pre-made design layouts. Canva is completely drag-and-drop based which makes it extremely easy to use for everyone.
They also have premium designs and stock photos that you can incorporate into your design for only US$1. Aside from that, Canva is completely free to use and allows you to download your graphics directly from the website.
3 - Snappa
This tool is great for users who need to generate images for blog posts and social media posts. You start by selecting the perfect image dimensions for your purpose. You can then choose from hundreds of pre-made templates and thousands of high-res royalty-free stock photos to create your graphic. Tons of fonts, icons, and effects help top off your creation in minutes, and you don’t have to pay a separate cost for graphics and templates!
4 - PicMonkey
This design tool allows you to edit photos and design graphics from scratch. PicMonkey is a great tool for people who don’t want to overcomplicate their lives with Photoshop, but just need a quick edit to their photos.
Choose from a variety of fonts, filters, overlays and text tools to help you create the image you need. PicMonkey offers a free 7-day trial. After your trial, you can sign up for as low as $5.99 CAD/month (when you select the bill annually option).
5 - WordSwag
WordSwag is an awesome tool used to create text-based graphics on your iPhone or Android phone. We love using this tool for quotes, adding captions to photos or for blog images. Simply upload your photo, pick your font, colour and orientation, and you’re set!
6 – PlaceIt
Another marketing team favourite, PlaceIt is your perfect source for creating stunning lifestyle images for your custom apparel line. With thousands of stunning high-res photos and videos to choose from, all you need to do is upload your design or logo and its added instantly. PlaceIt has other uses too! You can use it electronic mockups like on phones, tablets or computer screens and can even insert your logo onto books and flyers.
7 - Entripy Design Studio
How could we go without mentioning our own Design Studio? Our Design Studio is built to create your custom apparel designs easily in 3 steps. First, you pick your product from Entripy’s selection of thousands of custom hats, sweaters, jackets, t-shirts and more.
Then, you add any images you would like, whether it be your logo or from our massive selection of clipart. And finally, you add your text using colours matched to our stock inks and stock threads, so you know exactly how your printing and embroidery will look. Check out our Resources page to browse through our stock.
