27 free tools for your next (low-budget) design project
We, designers, love projects where clients have a budget that accommodates additional tools to make the project go from great to brilliant. But realistically, how many times does that happen?
More often than not, time and money are a luxury that we can’t afford, and that limits our thought process. Or does it?
I’m a firm believer that the instrument doesn’t make the maker, or rather the designer. There are always cheaper, free alternatives to solve a problem that can be fixed without investing big bucks.
So to quick-start any of my future budget-friendly or low-budget projects, I’ve decided to compile 27 tools by topic that are either completely free or with free options. Some I’m already familiar with but intend to use more frequently, and others, I was stoked when I found t them.
I hope you’ll find them helpful as well. If so, please leave a comment, clap, and follow for more posts on everything design.
Now on with the list!
Idea generation
MindMup
This is a great online tool for creating mind maps alone or as a team member. It uses visual cues like different colors, font sizes, and indentation to keep everything polished and straightforward.
The free version doesn’t require a login, storages your maps for up to six months, and saves the larger ones to Google Drive.
Mindly
I didn’t know Mindly before this post’s research, but the designer/organize freak in me was clapping until the end of the explanation video.
This app uses the concept of word association to create visually appealing graphs and organize thoughts in a condensed and orderly way.
It’s free to download from App Store, Mac App Store, Google Play, and AppGallery.
Moodboards
Milanote
You’ve probably heard of this one. Milanote has been the YouTubers’ favorite app for some time now, and with good reason.
This board creation tool allows you to organize your ideas/content by drawing, attaching links, images, and colors, and even leaving comments to yourself and other team members. It’s both a moodboard and a collaborative system.
You can sign up for free and use it on the browser or download it for mobile, iPad, or desktop.
Visualist
Unlike other mood board tools, Visualist was designed to be minimal. Based on building blokes and automatic tagging, it’s easier to keep ideas looking tidy, straight to the point and sharable with a single link.
You can test it without signing up or downloading it.
Moodboard
I’ve mentioned this tool before.
Like the previous, you don’t need a signup or download. You can start from a blank board or use one of the predesigned templates.
The main difference, however, is that Moodboard only lets you import images. There aren’t any additional features. That can be a pain, or it can be just what you need for your project.
Mural
If you always search for a digital whiteboard, you are in luck.
Better for teams with multiple roles, it’s a collaborative online tool with scalable canvases where everyone can pitch in with ideas and feedback.
You can use up to 3 murals and unlimited users with the free tier and take advantage of the main features.
Inspiration
Lapa ninja
If you work with web design or user interface, Lapa is an inspiring website to check. It comprises more than 5 thousand landing page examples, UI kits, and e-books, all free.
You don’t need to create an account or input any information.
Siteinspire
Like Lapa, Siteinspire is used for website inspiration and interactive design. Curated by Howells Studio — a London-based studio specialized in designing and developing websites and applications — it’s used by more than 15 thousand visitors daily.
You can search websites by style, type, subject, or platform and submit your work for consideration.
Commerce Cream
Shopify is one of the most well-known e-commerce platforms, not only by designers but by clients too. So it only made sense that a website with inspiration from Shopify existed.
Here you can find and vote on your favorite stores, submit your work, and read interviews with the studios/designers responsible for those websites.
Muzli
Not as well recognized as Behance or Dribbble, Muzli it’s a great addition to your Chrome browser. It’s a curated place to find inspiration from hundreds of other online websites on graphic design, tech, news, art, illustration, typography, photography, architecture, fashion, and more.
Patterns
Tabbied
I found out about Tabbied on Instagram and quickly became a fan.
If you’re in a time crunch, why not use something professional and quick to ease your stress?
It’s intuitive, looks beautiful, and only takes a minute to create a new pattern from scratch. What’s not to like?
Paaatterns!
Contrarily to the previews tool, in this case, you have premade patterns that you can download and customize to your heart’s desire.
Conveniently, they’re all in vector format — PNG or SVG — and can be used for Sketch, Figma, XD, or Illustrator.
Besides these patterns, you can check other free and premium tools from the same store.
Color
Colour Contrast
Though we should always care about it, we don’t remember to check color contrast in every project. Whether because we rely on our perception or we’re in a rush, messing up on color contrast is a big no-no in most projects.
So this tool is a handy help to keep everything in check and ensure our audience can understand what we produced as we intended.
Khroma
This could also be on the AI section of this list because it’s such a cool tool.
Khroma gives you a selection of 50 colors to choose your favorites. Based on that selection, a color generator algorithm will be personalized to your liking and recommend infinite new color palettes.
If this isn’t using AI to help designers and creators, then I don’t know what it is.
Colorkuler
It analyzes your Instagram profile and generates a color palette accordingly. Yet, the free version only considers the last 9 photos published on your feed, and that can limit the input you receive.
If you need something more in-depth, you can pay 3 bucks for a personalized analysis that includes an Instagram color palette based on more information like the last twenty-eight posts, the most liked color, profile color, and others.
BrandColors
Do you know when you see a brand and the colors feel right? With BrandColors you can search multiple brands, get their official hex color codes and even see them live on their website.
Illustration
Scale
Search by single or multiple colors, packs, and styles.
This free personal and commercial usage tool is your ally if you need illustrations but can’t afford to do them or hire someone else.
You can change the illustration colors inside the website or download it in SVG and PNG formats.
Humaaans
Flat illustrations have been on the trend wheel for some time.
This collection lets you personalize and create your characters and scenes based on templates.
You can customize your humans according to your project’s needs and preferences, and they’re free for commercial and personal use.
Type
The League of Movable Type
Since 2009, this free, open-source type foundry decided to raise the design standards of the web.
Its fonts have been used by some of the biggest international companies, such as American Airlines, the World Health Organization, and Whole Foods, to mention a few.
Besides free-type specimens, you can subscribe to the newsletter for suggestions, tutorials, and additional links.
TypeType
In 2008, the Free Fonts Project, created by Ivan Gladkikh, wanted to make typography popular and available to everyone.
Since then, more than 50 fonts have been added to the project and can now the browsed and used according to their category. All of them can be used for both personal and commercial purposes without limits.
FontStruct
Unlike the two previous mentions, this is not a type foundry. It’s a font-building tool that allows you to freely create fonts using geometrical shapes. Once you complete your creation, it converts it to TrueType fonts and lets you share and download it.
Mockups
Mr. Mockup
Every designer knows that mockups can make a project shine and are indispensable to giving clients a glimpse of products IRL (in real life). But they can be expensive, especially if you want quality, different mockups than the ones you see online.
Mr. Mockup has been one of my favorites lately. If you can’t invest, their free mockups look sharp. If you have the budget, they also have some exclusive professional packs.
mockupbee
It was created specifically to provide professional freebies for designers. Regardless you use them for personal or commercial work, mockupbee’s team wants you to have the best options free of charge.
Graphic Google
Before you even go there and make the association: this website has nothing to do with That Google. Still, it’s a free tool that showcases several categories of freebies from which I recommend the mockups. They look clean and are easy to use if you’re familiar with manipulating these files in Photoshop.
AI
ChatGPT
I’m still skeptical about AI tools, but when I heard everyone talking about Chat GPT, I wanted to try it too.
It’s hugely time-saving if you need to research, compare or compile large amounts of information.
The only thing I would recommend from personal experience if you haven’t tried it is to be precise about what you want to achieve and what needs to be considered before submitting your query.
Copy.ai
Though this isn’t an entirely free tool, you can still use the free version to create up to 2000 words per month and access more than 90 free copywriting tools.
So if the copy isn’t your forte and you’re tired of using lorem ipsum, you can use copy.ai to generate product descriptions, social media captions, and blog posts, impressing your clients even more.
File management
Playbook
This tool allows you to organize, share and cooperate on creative projects/files with other people.
The main advantage of Playbook instead of Dropbox or Google Drive is that you can request a qualification to get 4TB for free.
If you’re interested in getting the extra space, all you need to do is to create a free account and submit a link to your portfolio. Shortly after that, you will receive a confirmation email and the opportunity to invite some friends to use it too.
