Getting a job in graphic design: tools for 2019

Adobe Illustrator

Illustrator is primarily used for creating vector graphics, such as logos, graphics, cartoons and fonts. Vector graphics are mathematical equations and geometric primitives that are clean, camera ready and can be scaled infinitely without any loss of quality.

Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop is for creating and editing photos and raster (pixel) based artwork. Raster graphics are digital images made up of millions of pixels that lose quality the larger they are blown up. These are best used for simple web graphics and images used in printing.

HTML/ CSS

HTML/ CSS make up the basic building blocks of a webpage. The HTML is more for formatting and CSS is more design. You can learn the basics on Code Academy.

PowerPoint

PowerPoint is used to create high quality, attractive and branded visual presentations to get your message across to an audience. It is useful at all levels of business. Attractive designs can be found on Google slides.

InDesign

Adobe InDesign is a very commonly used desktop publishing and typesetting software. It is primarily used to layout printed materials, such as flyers, posters, presentations and eBooks. It is best used for projects that require multi-page layouts or master layouts.

Premiere Pro

Videos are becoming increasingly important to companies’ marketing. Premier Pro is a timeline-based video editing app geared towards professional video editing and allows you to edit high resolution video. It supports a wide variety of video and audio file formats. It also supports 3D editing.

Gimp

GIMP is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used in the same way as Photoshop, but less complex. It is ideal for SMEs and freelancers for photo editing and meme making.

Sketch

Sketch is a vector graphic editor for Mac OS, much easier to use than Photoshop. Sketch is popular as it is focused on the needs of the UI and icon designer.