In a global benchmark study, Adobe Data discovered that 75% of people don’t think they’re living up to their creative abilities. On the flip side, creative industries are enjoying rapid job growth and slower job loss than many of the other sectors (Source: Center for Creativity). Striving to be more creative is an admirable goal; figuring out how to do so can be more challenging. We’ve rounded up 10 of the best online tools to givehttp://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.adobe.com%2Faboutadobe%2Fpressroom%2Fpdfs%2FAdobe_State_of_Create_Global_Benchmark_Study.pdf&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHD9NH8SZEOeLGr_Bqn82SBRxTgXw your creativity and career a boost.
Canva
Canva makes it easy to add text and embellishments to existing photos. Just upload a photo with a click of a button, and you’re halfway there to creating innovative designs. Users can pick a custom layout or choose a blank page to create their own. Next, upload images from your photo library.
Canva is a fun tool for personal projects, but can also easily integrate with your business needs. Tap Canva’s collaborative features to share with coworkers or clients, and tweak designs as needed.
Shutterstock
Canva is a great resource for manipulating images, but you might still be stuck identifying the right royalty-free images.
Head to Shutterstock for millions of royalty-free stock photos, illustrations, and vector images. The latter can be used for logos and is easily manipulated to suit your needs. Unlike other types of image files, vectors can be blown-up and enhanced without losing quality. But despite the ability to blow-up vectors without resolution issues, the file size is still manageable and can be shared without taking up multiple gigs of space on your devices.
WordPress
Getting a website up and running can feel intimidating when you’re trying to combine a custom design with technical additions such as plugins and widgets. WordPress can simplify the process by offering free design templates that can be intuitively customized with just a few clicks.
Headway’s WordPress themes take the simplicity a step further with their drag and drop feature that can be used to design your website. Ideal for those who are lacking the design or technical know-how, the drag and drop functionality makes it easy to create and polish your website, as well as make any changes needed along the way.
Piktochart
In the last few years, the volume of infographic searches have increased over 800 percent. By creating innovative, informative infographics, you could expand the growth of your online presence.
The good news is that you don’t have to be a Photoshop or Illustrator expert to compete with the millions of highly creative infographics published on the web. Sites like Piktochart enable quick infographic creation without any real design or technical skills. The point and click editor customizes your fonts, colors, and images, and you can simply upload your own graphics or use some from Piktochart’s expansive library.
Zazzle
Zazzle sells one of a kind T-shirts, mugs, bags, stationery, cards, and just about anything else you can think of customizing. Log on and browse designs created by other users, or access Zazzle’s dashboard to customize your own products. Upload a photo or logo to place on a shirt, or create something from entirely from scratch using the site’s simple design tools.
Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock was an influential American painter of the abstract expressionist movement in the art world. JacksonPollock.org, the Webby Awards winning website and app, lets you create your own Pollock style masterpiece.
VSCO Keys
VSCO Keys is a powerful keyboard shortcut tool created to drastically reduce image editing time in Adobe Lightroom cc, 6, 5, 4, and 3. The tool simplifies your Lightroom workflow. Edit your images any way you want by using any keyboard or combination of keyboard, mouse and brush tools. By eliminating time-consuming mouse movements, you can blaze through stacks of images with efficiency, freedom, and flexibility.
Swiss Miss
Founded by Tina Roth Eisenberg, Swiss Miss curates loads of resources to boost your creativity. The blog’s feed is a perfect source of inspiration if you’re looking to start a new design project.
Adobe Color Wheel
The Adobe Color CC app can be used to create color schemes for your designs and primarily help you save a lot of time generating themes for a project. Themes can be designed based on analogous, monochromatic, triad, complementary, compound colors, shades or palettes based off of your swatch selection.
Friends of Type
Friends of Type features original typographic design and lettering – fresh visual content – practically every day. If you’re looking for inspiration for your packaging design or your logo, the blog’s unique perspective on lettering and type is a great place to start.
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This post was contributed in part by Social Monsters.
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