Admit it. The books you liked most as a kid were the ones with lots of pictures. Turns out, web users share similar preferences: 40 percent of people respond better to visual information than purely pain text.
And it’s not just about personal preference, it’s science. About 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text. This has important ramifications for your website — and your business. More than just creating good content, you need to be visually focused.
So you’re not a graphic designer. Luckily in the Internet Age, you don’t have to be. Housed in the hallways of the ethernet are a host of free tools to help you create engaging visual assets. Think: infographics, pie charts, graphs, and more.
Make Share-Worthy Graphics For Free
Canva
Creating professional-quality graphics with Canva is as easy as drag and drop. With accessible images, filters, icons, and fonts, Canva’s free service allows you to easily create visually-appealing presentations, social media graphics, graphs, posters, and even out-of-the-box projects, like invitations, ebook covers, email headers, posters, menus, flyers, newsletters, album covers, and cards.
Plotly
How do you translate all your data-driven content into appealing visuals? Try Plotly. With a focus on creating sophisticated charts and graphs, the online software (both free and paid upgraded versions available) allows you to import data and create a variety of winning graphics. Turning statics into dynamic presentations is as easy as pi (charts).
Piktochart
The power of infographics are real: they are shared and liked on social media three times more than every other type of content. But without some design prowess, sharing stats can be tricky. For that, there’s Picktochart: a free online service (with a paid version) that provides easy-to-use infographic templates, complete with photos, icons, and shareability tool — whether you’re sharing on social media, using in a presentation, or printing in a specific file format. Looking for more infographic-making options? Check out Easelly and Venngage.
Pablo
Want a shareable quote for social media or simple text-inclusive graphic? Pablo’s free, no-fuss tool allows you to search images, add filters and text, then share — an easy way to get all eyes on you — and your content.
Placeit
It’s a simple enough concept: placing a screengrab of your website into a stock photo of a phone, tablet, or computer. Placeit allows you to showcase your site in a variety of realistic environments — no extra design or photography skills needed.
BeFunky
If you want design software that gives you a little more freedom but is still easy to use, BeFunky’s designer tool gives you the ease of personalized creation while still providing specific resources and size templates for small business and blogger needs. Snappa is another all-inclusive visual creator available in free and paid versions.
Pixlr
Much of design starts with an image. If you can’t dish out hundreds for photo-editing software, utilize Pixlr’s free online tools. With many of the same features as pricier products, Pixlr can be access on your desktop or through a mobile app.
LogoGarden
It’s a pretty basic tool, but it gets the job done. Using the site’s catalog of symbols and text tools, you can create a simple logo for use on your website or social media channels. Another option is LogoTypeMaker.
AwesomeScreenshot
Maybe you’ve never used the “PrtScr” button on your computer. But sharing screen grabs can provide graphics for useful “how-to” content on your site. AwesomeScreenshot allows you to take screenshots and add annotations, then share easily to the web.
Got an eye for design and want to create your own share-worthy graphics, format-free? Try some additional free tools, like FontSquirrel for usable fonts, Pixabay for tons of photos, Landscape for social media resizing tools, and Iconfinder for icons.
4 Comments
Nice!!!!! this is what I needed to get started.
You did a fabulous job with this article. Loved all of it. Grabbed so much good info. Thank you! @Virtuallld2. Twitter acct.
There are some online tools which I have never knew. Really very informative post.
The hallways of the ethernet are a host of free tools to help you create engaging visual assets.