Professional graphic design software is often too complicated and way overpriced for non-designers. Moreover, tools like Adobe are tied up to the desktop making them obsolete in the digital world. Now there’s a new player on the market that aims to solve those problems. Let me present you Vectr – free and intuitive graphic design app built with a mission of graphic design accessible to everyone, worldwide.
At the moment Vectr is a great free tool for those who are getting started with vector graphics or have some regular needs working with graphics or images. Vectr could be used to create any kinds of vector graphic projects, among them: logotypes, watermarks, business cards etc.
The great advantage of vector graphics is that they’re scalable. No matter how you zoom in or out – the file would always remain clear. Therefore vector format is perfect for anything on the web or for print. Raster graphics on the other hand get pixelated once you scale them up and lose the quality, being perfectly fit only for photographs.
To get started, simply use the upload button or drag-and-drop the image into Vectr. Vectr lets you upload EPS, AI, SVG, PNG or JPEG files – which makes switching from other paid softwares like Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape very easy.
The interface is neatly organized and won’t bog beginners down with non-essential and complicated tools and functions. The pages and layers tabs in the left top corner would let you manage your projects, while the filters menu is placed on the right side of the interface.
Vectr is also truly collaborative. Each design possesses a unique URL which can be shared with friends or colleagues directly. You can also seamlessly post your designs to Facebook or Twitter. The team also claims that they’ve built a powerful collaboration engine under the hood which is going to allow for Google-docs style collaboration possibilities for professional designers in the future.
For those of you just getting started with vector graphics design – have no worries, Vectr’s team has got you covered. There’s a dedicated design tutorials section on their website with over twenty step-by-step tutorials on how to create various projects like business cards, web or mobile interfaces or different kinds of logotypes.
According to Vectr’s blog they’re going to launch designs marketplace this summer. Apparently it’s going to allow any user import designs into Vectr in just one click straight from the working canvas, as well as making money on selling the designs. Those are exciting news for professional designers too – now they’d have an access to another great marketplace to sell their creative items.
On their roadmap are are also built-in versioning – which is going to be very useful for professional designers and web developers – and advanced prototyping and mockuping tools. They all will go into a professional software version which is to be released next year.
You can get started with Vectr in less than 2 minutes online or download a desktop app. Have no worries by the way – all your designs are going to get synchronized across platforms. Happy designing!
