12 Open Source Software for Web and Graphic Designers

Free web and graphics designer software…

There is plenty of open-source software available that can support you remarkably as a web and graphic designer. Open source is valuable because of their price tag zero, and supportive community spreads across the world. In present economic circumstances, open-source tools are an excellent place to start looking.

It isn’t very easy in the world of design to maintain a professional career as a graphic designer only with open-source apps. Perhaps many enhanced open-source apps are available to help you become an excellent graphic and web designer. The term open source means it is available free and accessible to everyone.

Krita

Krita is a powerful vector graphics creator with a heavy focus on digital painting and illustration. It is mainly used to design comic books. It is free software with advanced templates and features.

Artists designed Krita for top-quality drawing software that is available to everyone. It can help design comic books, drawing such as smooth shapes, vanishing points, advanced selection functions, layer masks, etc. If you want to enter the illustration world, Krita is the best choice in the open-source category.

Lunacy

Lunacy is a free, super-fast graphic software for UI, UX, and web design. It has everything you are used to in other similar apps and goes beyond. With Lunacy, you will save tons of time that you normally spend googling for graphics. Thousands of icons, illustrations, and photos are available right inside the app.

What’s more, Lunacy is charged with handy AI-powered tools to automate routine tasks: background remover, image upscaler, avatar, and text generators. Unlike Figma, Lunacy is not addicted to the internet, and most of its features work offline. If you prefer online collaboration with fellow designers, it is also possible. Unlike Sketch, which runs only on macOS, Lunacy natively handles .sketch files on all the basic platforms. The interface of the app comes in 21 languages.

penpot

The first Open Source design project using open web standards (SVG) is penpot. It is designed for cross-domain teams and is web-based. Therefore, it is independent of operating systems. This free web-based application enables users to develop, share, and manage design projects.

It offers a variety of templates and tools, as well as a community forum where users can ask and answer questions. It also includes a library of premade designs and designers to collaborate on projects with others.

Its distinctive feature is that the entire team may work on the same project simultaneously while designing in real-time and receiving centralized comments, suggestions, and feedback directly over the designs.

Highlights

• Centralized platform to create a prototype, share with clients, discuss with the team and start working
• Built-in layouts and elements for speedier execution
• Compatible with the majority of vectorial tools
• Add-ons and plugins for maximum adaptability
• Able to create visual memes

Designers can utilize penpot, an open-source design tool, to expand the usability and audience of their works. Open-source designers benefit from user feedback worldwide, which helps them refine their work.

Gimp

Gimp stands for the GNU image manipulation program.

Gimp is one of the most popular and open-source graphics design and photo editing tools. It is a featured-packed graphic design suite and image editor. This tool is the same as Adobe photoshop layout. A fantastic tool for any beginner or advanced designer who primarily works with photos.

GIMP is a high-quality framework for scripted image direction amidst languages including C, Perl, C++, Python, etc.

It is a counterpart to Adobe Photoshop. If you are creating a digital painting or adjusting photos and compositing various elements, it is fantastic. Of Course, it doesn’t have all the features like photoshop, but whoever created this software has an enormous number of volunteers from across the world.

Highlights

• Packed with filters, masks, layers, and brushes
• Extend the features with the extensions
• Advanced photo editing features
• Truly inspirational designs are created. It means to render the flexibility to transform images the way you like them.
• An enormous number of graphical design elements, logos, interface components. It also contributes to top-notch color management features to ensure high fidelity color management.

Inkscape

Inkscape is much like Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw. It is also one of the powerful tools available free to everyone. It is also known as the counterpart of vector graphics creator adobe illustrator.

Inkscape basic and default file format is in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). Inkscape is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows operating systems.

Highlights

• Styling objects
• Supports various types of file formats
• Operation depends on the path.
• Manipulation in the object can be done effectively.
• Ease of documentation
• Flexible user interface

Synfig Studio

Available on Windows, OSX, and Linux, Synfig Studio is a 2D animation software for all creative enthusiasts to bring their designs to life. Depending upon your drawing style, you’d be able to achieve just about any kind of vibe of animation you’re aiming for.

Check one of the complex animations created with this software:

You can also create something light-hearted and simple if that’s your forte. As I said, it all boils down to what you’re looking to create, and consider it a nod from Synfig Studio.

Talking about the features, it gives you complete control over your vector artwork right from importing it to exporting the finished product. You can duplicate shapes, work with over 50 layers, add filters and apply gradients.

Apart from that, you can totally take over the bone system to accurately structure your design so that their movements look the way you want them to look. This can be easily achieved by utilizing their Skeleton Distortion layer, which helps you to apply complex deformations to bitmap artwork.

You can choose from two different versions – Stable and Development. The former is the one that’s well-tested and proven, while the latter is the newer one that has experimental features and additional bug fixes. Both of them are free to download as this is open-source software.

Dia

Dia was built on a single document interface (SDI) similar to Inkscape and GIMP. It is mainly used to create electronic circuit type networks, flowcharts, etc. It is integrated with many advanced features, i.e., using this to help draw relationship models in database structures, UML, simple electrical circuits. SVG and XML file formats are supported.

Using Dia, you can export SVG, EPS, DXF, PNG, JPEG all other well-known formats.

Blender

Blender is a 3D drawing creation software. The topmost famous animators use Blender to make short films, feature films, TV shows, etc.

Its interface is quite complex at first, but when you go forward to design, then it is easy. It has many customizable features; of course, you can also create your extensions and features that the way you want to design.

Using Blender, you can handle photorealistic rendering, sculpting(different types of brushes), game creation, and fast rigging.

If you are willing to spend, you should check out premium software to design 3D animation.

Pencil2D

Pencil2D is a drawing software; it is enabled to design hand-drawn animations using bitmap and vector graphics. It is straightforward to use, and it is integrated with a clearer interface and equipped with high-end animation tools.

So the Pencil2D drawing tool is might be the best way to know the fundamental principles of vector graphics and cartoon animation.

Skencil

Skencil is a vector drawing application. It is available in Linux/Unix/GNU-like operating systems. It enables us to create some great diagrams and illustrations and useful drawings. Skencil is built with an interpreted language, i.e., python, and it is very high-level object-oriented.

Highlights

• Ease of use.
• Gradient fills
• Write EPS files
• Blend Groups
• Transformed images and text
• Advanced rectangles and curves etc.

Font Forge

FontForge is a font editor, which supports many font formats for designers. It is lightweight and enables you to create smooth designs of your own-type, true-type, and postscript. It is free software developed by George Williams and written in C-programming language.

It uses FreeType rendering font creations on screen.

SVG-Edit

SVG-Edit can help to create vector graphics within the browser without any additional software installation on your system. It is a cross-browser javascript graphic design tool.

SVG-Edit consists of two interfaces, which include svgcanvas.js and svg-editor.js. These two components work mutually to create effective vector graphics.

Conclusion

As digitalization across the globe has been increasing over the years, it clearly shows that the demand for the graphic and web designing industry will be high. Choosing the right tool that suits your business needs will give you the best results.

Alternatively, if you don’t prefer to download and wish to do it online then you can explore these online design tools.

Procreate is one of the best design tools, but it is available only for iPads. If you are a Windows user, here are some alternatives to Procreate for Windows.