Ready to unlock AI’s full potential in your graphic design workflow? This comprehensive guide introduces you to the top 6 AI tools for graphic designers that can revolutionize your creative process. Discover how to streamline your tasks, generate innovative ideas, and deliver exceptional results.
From prototyping tools to image generators and beyond, this post will provide the tools you need to stay ahead of the curve and create stunning visuals that captivate your audience and clients.
What are AI graphic design tools?
AI graphic design tools leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to automate, assist, and enhance various aspects of the design process. They offer a range of capabilities, from generating design ideas and layouts to automating image editing tasks and creating stunning visuals.
Making a case for AI in graphic design
The rise of AI in graphic design sparked concerns among some designers who fear AI might replace human creativity. However, rather than a threat, AI tools can be a powerful asset that empowers designers to focus on what they do best: conceptualization, storytelling, and problem-solving.
AI tools offer numerous benefits for graphic designers:
- The ability to break through creative blocks.
- Increased productivity.
- Enhanced creativity.
- Improved efficiency.
- Better quality work.
Features to look for in AI tools for graphic designers
When evaluating AI tools for graphic design, consider the following features:
- Ease of Use: You want to avoid going through another painfully steep learning curve. An intuitive interface and user-friendly experience are essential.
- Customization: The ability to tailor the AI’s output to your needs and follow design trends and styles.
- Collaboration: Look for tools that enable real-time collaboration with clients and team members.
- Versatility: The wider the range of AI-powered capabilities, the more design challenges the tool will address.
- Integrations: Seamless integration with your existing design software and workflow enhances efficiency further.
- Price: Choose a tool with a pricing structure that scales with your needs and fits your budget.
When choosing AI tools for graphic design, it’s also essential to consider the possible security risks of AI. As these tools advance, they often handle sensitive client information and large volumes of creative assets.
Without proper security measures, there’s a risk of data breaches or unauthorized access to your work. Always opt for AI tools with robust security features to protect your designs and client data.
The six best AI tools for graphic designers
Let’s dive into the top six AI-powered tools that are currently revolutionizing graphic design:
Best all-rounder: Designs.ai
Designs.ai is an AI-powered graphic design platform with solutions for various design needs, from logos and social media graphics to videos and voiceovers. While it might not be the absolute best in every specific category, its comprehensive features make it a valuable AI tool for any graphic designer.
Key features
Designs.ai offers eight AI-powered design tools, but the four most important are:
- Design Maker: Design stunning visuals for social media, presentations, and marketing assets easily.
- Logo Maker: Quickly generate unique and professional logos based on your brand name and industry.
- Video Maker: Create engaging videos with customizable templates, stock footage, and music.
- Speech Maker: Convert text to natural-sounding speech in multiple languages and voices for voiceovers and presentations.
Pricing
Designs.ai offers a three-tiered subscription model with a free trial for its basic plan.
| Subscription Plan | Price (month/year) | Credits | Users | Premium Images |
| Basic | $29/ month or $228/year | 1,000 | 1 | 0 |
| Pro | $69/mo or $588/year | 3,000 | 1 | 20 |
| Enterprise | $199/mo or $2,028/year | 15,000 | 5 | 200 |
Pros and cons
Designs.ai has the following pros and cons:
| Pros | Cons |
| Comprehensive suite of AI design tools. | Can be overwhelming for beginners. |
| User-friendly interface. | Learning curve for some features. |
| Wide range of templates and assets. | Occasional limitations in customization. |
| Affordable pricing plans. |
Best for AI vector graphic generation: Adobe Firefly
Developed by Adobe, Firefly is a powerful generative AI tool integrated into the Creative Cloud suite. It excels at generating stunning images but stands out for its ability to create high-quality vector graphics from text prompts, something few other tools can boast.
Key features
The following are Firefly’s key features:
- Generate Template: Generate editable templates from a detailed text description.
- Text to Vector: Generate scalable vector graphics from simple text descriptions.
- Text Effects: Create eye-catching text effects and styles with AI assistance.
- Style Transfer: Apply different artistic styles to your images with ease.
Pricing
While the text-to-image feature is free, access to Adobe Firefly’s advanced features, including vector outputs, requires an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.
These subscriptions range from $9.99/month for Adobe Lightroom to $59.99/month for the full Creative Cloud suite.
Pros and cons
If you’re considering using Firefly, here’s some pros and cons the tool comes with:
| Pros | Cons |
| Seamless integration with Creative Cloud apps. | Requires an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. |
| High-quality vector outputs. | It can be resource-intensive. |
| Powerful text-to-image capabilities. | Limited ability to fine-tune design aspects like typography and layout. |
| Highly customizable with multiple controls and dozens of styles. |
Best for UX/UI prototyping: Uizard
Uizard is an AI-powered prototyping tool from Miro Labs that allows designers to quickly create interactive UX/UI prototypes without writing a single line of code.
This makes it a valuable asset for streamlining the design process, testing ideas, and gathering feedback from clients and stakeholders.
Key features
These are the features that Uizard users can benefit from:
- Wireframe Scanner: Transforms hand-drawn wireframe sketches into digital designs.
- Screen generator: Create new screens to visualize ideas and iterate faster than ever.
- Screenshot Scanner: Turns screenshots into editable mockups in seconds.
- Focus Predictor: Generate attention heatmaps with one click.
- Autodesigner 2.0: AI-powered UI design generator.
Pricing
Uizard offers a free plan and four subscription options.
| Subscription Plan | Price (month/year) | Projects | Generations per month | Pre-made Templates |
| Free | Free | 2 | 3 AI generations | 10 |
| Pro | $19/ editor /month or $144/year | Up to 100 | 500 AI generations | Full library access |
| Business | $39/editor/month | Unlimited | 5,000 AI generations | Full library access |
| Enterprise | Custom pricing | Unlimited | Unlimited AI generations. | Full library access |
Pros and cons
Uizard features some advantages and disadvantages:
| Pros | Cons |
| Accelerates the prototyping process. | Learning curve for advanced features. |
| Eliminates the need for coding. | Limited customization options in some areas. |
| Intuitive and user-friendly interface. | May not be suitable for highly complex prototypes. |
| Seamless collaboration features. |
Best for AI layout design and ease of use: Canva
Canva is a wildly popular, user-friendly cloud design platform that offers an extensive library of almost 4 million templates and 130 million assets.
Its AI-powered layout design tools, such as Magic Design, further enhance its appeal by generating professional-looking layouts based on your content and preferences.
Key features
As a Canva user, these are some of the features you can benefit from:
- Magic Design: Automatically generate design suggestions and layouts based on your content.
- Text to Media: Create unique images and videos from text prompts, expanding your visual options.
- Background Remover: Easily remove backgrounds from images for seamless integration into your designs.
- Brand Kit: Centralize your brand assets and maintain consistency across your designs.
Pricing
Canva has a generous free plan with access to multiple features and templates. Canva Pro offers additional features, premium templates, and increased storage for a monthly or annual fee.
| Subscription Plan | Price (month/year) | Assets/Templates | Magic Design | Magic Media – Text to Image and Graphics | Magic Media – Text to Video |
| Free | Free | 3.2+million/2.1million | 10 uses | 50 uses | 5 uses |
| Pro | $120/year | 127+million/3.8million | Unlimited | 500 uses | 50 uses |
| Teams | $100/year | 127+million/3.8million | Unlimited | 500 uses | 50 uses |
| Enterprise | Custom pricing | 127+million/3.8million | Unlimited | 500 uses | 50 uses |
Pros and cons
Let’s take a look at the advantages and disadvantages:
| Pros | Cons |
| Extremely user-friendly interface. | Can feel limiting for advanced designers seeking complete creative control. |
| Vast library of templates and assets. | Some premium features and assets require a paid subscription. |
| Affordable pricing plans. | |
| Great for collaboration. |
Best for high-quality AI image generation: Midjourney
Midjourney is the OG of AI image generation and is still the best, most customizable tool in this niche.
It’s renowned for producing incredibly realistic and visually stunning images from text prompts, offering a powerful alternative to stock photography and even custom photography in many cases.
Key features
If you’re considering using Midjourney, take a look at some of its features below:
- Photorealistic image generation: Create breathtaking images with unparalleled realism and detail.
- Extensive customization options: Use advanced prompting techniques and tweak multiple parameters to fine-tune your image generation.
- Diverse artistic styles: Generate images in various styles, from classic paintings to modern digital art.
Pricing
Midjourney offers a free trial that lets you generate around 25 images. After that, you must subscribe to one of their four paid plans.
| Subscription Plan | Price (month/year) | Fast GPU time | Relax GPU time | Concurrent jobs |
| Basic | $10/mo or $96/year | 3.3 | – | 3 + 10 in queue |
| Standard | $30/mo or $288/year | 15 | Unlimited | 3 + 10 in queue |
| Pro | $60/mo or $576/year | 30 | Unlimited | 12 Fast + 3 Relaxed + 10 in queue |
| Mega | $120/mo or $1152/year | 60 | Unlimited | 12 Fast + 3 Relaxed + 10 in queue |
Pros and cons
This AI image generator tool also has its advantages and disadvantages:
| Pros | Cons |
| Unmatched image quality and realism. | Requires a paid subscription. |
| Vibrant community of creators. | Steep learning curve for mastering advanced prompting techniques. |
| Extensive array of customizable controls. | Discord interface isn’t ideal. |
Best AI image enhancer and upscaler: Magnific.ai
Magnific.ai is an impressive AI image upscaler created by Javi Lopez and Emilio Nicolas, two indie entrepreneurs, and AI art gurus. The tool can increase resolution up to 16X.
Provide any image as input and get photorealistic outputs or crisp, clear images you can print on a billboard.
Key features
Some of the features that a Magnific.ai user can benefit from include:
- Prompting: Guide the image transformation with a prompt to get the desired result.
- Control settings: Tweak Creativity, HDR, and Anchor settings to control how much detail to add and how free the model is to hallucinate.
- Fix bad or inconsistent AI outputs: Transform unnatural hand postures or strange faces into stunning images.
- Upscaling: Upscale small images while increasing the level of detail.
- Image enhancement: Enhance and restore old photographs.
Pricing
Magnific doesn’t offer a free plan or a free trial. It offers three paid subscription plans.
| Subscription Plan | Price (per month) | Tokens/mo | Normal upscales/mo | Large upscales/mo |
| Pro | $39 per month | 2,500 | 200 | 100 |
| Premium | $99 per month | 6,500 | 550 | 250 |
| Enterprise | $299 per month | 20,000 | 1,600 | 800 |
Pros and cons
Just like the other AI tools, Magnific.ai features these pros and cons:
| Pros | Cons |
| Exceptionally high-quality output. | No free plan or free trial. |
| Upscale by as much as 16X resolution. | Paid plans are rather expensive. |
| Works with many different image and photographic styles. | Limited number of features. |
| Very easy to use. |
The perfect blend: AI and real-world imagery
AI is here to stay, and it won’t replace graphic designers. It’s time for all graphic designers to embrace it and exploit its potential to speed up production and enhance output quality. Tools like Design.ai and Canva can aid the entire creative process. Others like Magnific and Firefly are more specialized and focused on quality. Whichever tool you choose, one thing is certain: you’ll be glad you did.
Regardless, while AI tools like the ones we’ve explored today can significantly enhance your workflow and spark creativity, they can only take you so far. Combining AI’s power with real-world photography’s artistry allows you to create truly exceptional designs that leave a lasting impression.
Ready to elevate your visual content? Book a Splento photographer today and unlock the full potential of your creative vision.
About the Author
Guillaume is a digital marketer focusing on workable management at Wordable and Digital PR at uSERP. Outside of work, he enjoys his life in sunny Mexico, reading books, wandering around and catching the latest shows on TV.