When dealing with modern consumers (aka the attention span of a goldfish), the challenge is clear. You need to attract them mid-scroll.
Design plays a crucial role in marketing. Well-crafted visual content can help you command attention and get your message heard. B2B, B2C, doesn’t matter. This is a universal truth.
What’s also a universal truth (sadly!) is that you don’t always have the time or resources to engage a professional graphic designer for every piece of content. Professionals should be your first choice whenever possible, but we get that sometimes you have to default to DIY.
Canva, of course, is the OG of DIY design. Lots of templates, bunches of fonts, pretty robust free version. But as with any popular platform, the risk is seeing “your” look and feel being used by a competitor.
That’s of course true with any templated tool, but less likely if you’re using one that still flies under the radar (for now) like these:
Adobe Express — Frankly, we’re surprised that more non-designers don’t take advantage of this tool suite. Maybe they associate “Adobe” with “complicated”. Fair point, but this really isn’t.
What we really like: Text treatment options are more sophisticated than elsewhere, giving your design a bit more flair.
The downside: It’s easy to go overboard and fall victim to too many competing visual elements.
VistaCreate — From the big shots that brought you VistaPrint, VistaCreate excels at — what else? — getting your projects commercially printed with an integrated print tool.
What we really like: Tons of royalty-free stock photos, videos and vectors, so you can save money if you’re also paying for Adobe Stock or similar. Also offers templates for YouTube and Twitch.
The downside: Video tutorials can be a bit overwhelming at the start. The tool also pushes Pro (aka paid) upgrades with annoying frequency.
Desygner — This suite definitely has a more business-focused feel, leaning into benefits like brand consistency and how much the tool can save in design fees.
What we really like: Includes templates for documents like NDAs, invoices and proposals. Also groups templates by seasonality, which can help in prompting ideas for topical content.
The downside: Image search sometimes produces bizarre results, so you may need to work a little harder to find what you need.
Gamma — Billed as “the modern alternative to slides, powered by AI” Gamma is actually much more. We’re still taking this for a test run, but at first glance it lets you easily create landing pages, pitch decks, portfolios and more.
What we really like: Easy-to-create landing pages are a game-changer.
The downside: Gamma is super-sketchy when it comes to tutorials, help features, etc. Definitely a learning curve to even find what’s possible, never mind actually create it.
Plus, a bonus specialty tool
Visme — Need to present boring data without putting readers into a coma? From robust data visualization tools to infographic templates, Visme helps you share information in a more visual way.
These days, your visual marketing content’s potential doesn’t have to be held back by substandard graphic designer skills. In a pinch, DIY can often get the job done.