In a world where visuals often speak louder than words, marketers everywhere are looking for solutions to streamline their never-ending list of marketing projects, create impactful graphics, and put their brand in front of the right eyes.
That's why artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a powerful tool recently, capable of generating picture-perfect images from simple text prompts to quickly and efficiently meet design needs.
But what tools are worth your time and which tools aren’t?
If that’s the million-dollar question for you, then you’ve come to the right place!
Today’s blog is bringing you our list of the top 10 tools for graphic design to lighten your workload and give the results you're looking for in a fraction of the time!
Why Would I Need AI Tools for Graphic Design?
If you're curious as to why marketers would turn to AI tools for their graphic design needs in the first place, then we're here to tell you that there are plenty of reasons!
Here are just a few we can think of:
- Efficiency and Time Savings — AI-powered tools can automate the most repetitive design tasks, saving valuable time and allowing marketers to focus on strategy and creativity.
- Consistency in Branding — AI tools provide templates that keep branding consistent across various marketing collateral, maintaining a cohesive visual identity.
- Data-Driven Insights — AI can analyze the performance of different design elements, helping marketers make data-driven decisions to optimize visuals for better engagement and conversion rates.
- Personalization — AI allows for the creation of personalized and dynamic content based on things like user behavior, preferences, or demographic data, enhancing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
- Intelligent Resizing — AI tools can intelligently resize designs for different platforms and devices, ensuring that marketing visuals are optimized for each channel.
- Cost-Efficiency — AI-powered tools can help reduce dependency on external design resources, potentially lowering overall design-related expenses for marketing campaigns.
- Lack of Creative Skillset — Many AI graphic design tools have user-friendly interfaces, making them accessible to marketers with varying levels of design expertise.
How Do AI Art Generators Work?
It’s a complicated process but we’ll do our best to explain it simply.
AI text-to-image generators work by using sophisticated algorithms and neural networks to analyze huge data sets made up of various artwork on the Internet.
These algorithms are capable of learning patterns, styles, and features from the artwork they analyze.
When you type a request in the prompt, such as “man eating hamburger” or “smiling couple in a kayak,” machine learning enables the art generator to weigh your request against the images it’s analyzed and uses elements to create an AI-generated image that is (usually) what you asked for.
And since it’s an iterative learning process, that means these tools are constantly refining their abilities to create increasingly authentic and diverse artwork for use in your next marketing campaign!
Best AI Graphic Design Tools for Marketers
Whatever reason you find yourself turning to AI for assistance with your graphic design needs, we have what you came here for!
Here are 10 of our favorite AI tools to help you streamline your design process!
1. Designs.ai
Designs.ai is a platform that allows you to create elements like logos, videos, banners, and mockups using the power of artificial intelligence!
With a user-friendly interface and innovative AI tools, Designs.ai lets marketers streamline their graphic design workflow with features such as Face Swapper, LogoMaker, SpeechMaker, and more!
Price: Designs.ai has three pricing plans to choose from, all billed yearly; a Basic plan for $19/month, a Pro plan for $49/month, and an Enterprise plan for $169/month.
2. Midjourney
Midjourney is a generative AI tool created and hosted by San Francisco-based independent research lab, Midjourney, Inc.
This text-to-image generator is capable of creating realistic and high-quality images and designs from natural language descriptions or prompts. Marketers all over are taking advantage of its technology for moodboarding and for creating images to use in marketing campaigns.
Price: Midjourney has 4 pricing plans available; Basic for $10/ month (or $96 if billed yearly!), Standard for $30/month (or $288 yearly), Pro for $60/month ($576 yearly), or Mega for $120/month ($1152 yearly). Each plan offers faster GPU times so see which plan works best for you!
3. DALL-E 3
DALL-E 3, an upgrade from Open AI’s flagship art generator, DALL-E and its improved iteration, DALL-E 2, is an AI system that creates realistic images and art from a written prompt.
Like Midjourney, it generates original artwork based on human prompts and can create realistic images that combine concepts, attributes, and styles. Still new on the market (it launched in October of 2023), this generator is perfect for marketers wanting to speed up the creative process and get concepts quickly.
Price: DALL-E 3 doesn’t operate on a subscription plan, instead having users pay for what they use. According to OpenAI’s pricing page, each image from DALL-E 3 runs between $0.040 to $0.080.
4. Adobe Firefly
Adobe Firefly uses generative AI and simple text prompts to create high-quality images, text effects, and fresh color palettes.
A favorite tool of graphic designers, this design software is capable of things like generating images, adding or removing objects, creating templates, filling in objects, and more!
Use it to create assets for social media, your website, and whatever else would benefit from beautiful graphics!
Price: Adobe gives buyers the choice of getting Firefly free or as part of their Creative Cloud. You can try it free with 25 monthly credits at your disposal, bump it up to 100 monthly credits with their $4.99/month plan, or go for 500 monthly credits with their $9.99/month plan. If you need more than that, get the entire Creative Cloud for $59.99/month and enjoy 1,000 monthly credits.
5. ModelsLab Stable Diffusion
Stable Diffusion is another very popular deep learning, text-to-image AI art generator.
Its model is based on diffusion technology and uses latent space, which reduces processing requirements and allows it to be run on desktops or laptops equipped with GPUs. It allows users to create and edit images, even offering a Train Model function to teach the AI what exactly it is that you want!
Price: Stable Diffusion offers its users 3 monthly plans; $29/month for hobbyists, $49/month for individuals and teams exploring AI APIs, and $149/month for beta launching your apps.
Check out what each plan has to offer to see which one is right for you and your brand.
6. Khroma
Let’s say you already have the designs you need, only the color is all wrong …
Then you might have a need for tools like Khroma. This AI color tool allows users to train a neural network to generate the colors they like and block out the ones they don’t, creating limitless color palettes for you to find and save for later use.
Experiment with palettes for typography, gradients, or images, to find what works best with your marketing assets!
Price: No paid plans or subscriptions here, friends. Khroma is free to use with no limits! Give it a try!
7. Let’s Enhance
A big part of graphic design work is to enhance, improve, and resize images so that they look their best on social media, in apps, or on your website.
Let’s Enhance aims to make that job easier.
This AI tool allows you to instantly manipulate images for increased image resolution, improved quality, and upscale without sacrificing clarity. It’s also capable of generating original images as well for your marketing convenience!
Price: Let’s Enhance offers 4 pricing plans, including a Free plan that allows users 10 free credits a month. If you need more images than that, you can try their 100-credit plan for $9/month, their 300-credit plan for $24/month, or their 500-credit plan for $34/month.
Each plan comes with increasingly more features so check out which one best fits your needs!
8. Nvidia Canvas
If you’ve got a great eye for graphic design but not the skill to match, then no worries!
Tools like Nvidia Canvas can turn simple brushstrokes into realistic landscape images, backgrounds, and more to speed up your creative process and help you better visualize your ideas!
Price: Nvidia Canvas is still in beta form so click that link to download it for free if you have a Windows 10 OS! (Sorry, Apple users, no download for you just yet.)
9. AI Logo Maker
Available on design.com, this AI logo maker does exactly what its name describes!
Just type your business name in the text prompt and create a great-looking logo in just minutes! Edit it to your liking, add a slogan, and save yourself some serious time!
Price: Totally free!
10. NightCafe
NightCafe is another extremely popular text-to-image AI art generator that lets users create amazing artwork in just seconds.
Just type in your prompt, choose a style, and watch it go!
NightCafe also allows users to engage and collaborate with its thriving AI art community which includes chat rooms, daily challenges, and options to share your art with your friends!
Price: NightCafe is free to use with a limited number of credits. If you need more than that though, you can get 100 credits a month for $4.79 a month, 200 credits a month for $7.99 a month, 500 credits a month for $15.99/month, or 1400 credits a month for $39.99 a month.
What AI Can’t Replace
Here’s the thing though …
While AI is perfectly capable of generating realistic and beautiful images for your marketing needs, it’s still a machine and AI cannot replace human designers.
When it comes to creativity and design, expect human intelligence to win out every time. That's just because, as advanced and impressive as AI technology is, machines just cannot reproduce the finer aspects of creativity, emotional intelligence, context, nuanced decision-making, and the ability to connect to a human audience the way a human designer can.
So, while an art generator can create an ad for you, if you want it to really deliver, you’ll still need a designer to refine it, give it context, and make sure it’s aligned with your branding guidelines.
We find that AI works best as a useful tool for your design team, something to help them ideate, streamline repetitive tasks, develop concepts, and speed up their workflow.
<div class="c-blog_comp-cta cc-component-1"><div class="c-blog_comp-cta-left"><div class="c-blog_comp-cta-left-wrap"><img src="https://global-uploads.webflow.com/61cdf3c5e0b8155f19e0105b/6369722e59155470b6840033_Potential-clients.png" loading="lazy" alt="" class="c-blog_comp-cta-left-img"></div></div><div class="c-blog_comp-cta-right"><div class="c-blog_comp-content"><div class="c-text-wrapper cc-mb-32"><div class="c-title-4 cc-bold"><strong>Want to save money without sacrificing the quality?</strong></div></div><div class="c-text-wrapper"><div class="c-text-2">Say goodbye to traditional, expensive agencies and unreliable marketplaces. Say hello to Designity.<br></div></div></div><div class="c-blog_comp-wrapper"><a href="/pricing" target="_blank" class="c-button cc-primary cc-inverted w-button"><strong>Get Your 2-Week Trial</strong></a></div></div></div>
The Best of Both Worlds
So, yes, if you’re a marketer who's looking for a way to simplify their workflow and meet their graphic design needs, then, sure, AI can be beneficial to you!
But if you’re also in need of a leader to help you strategize your marketing campaigns and a human designer to refine your AI concepts and create truly effective marketing collateral, then we have a suggestion.
Why not combine the power of AI with the creative talent of the Designity community?
By partnering with Designity, you’ll have access to a talent pool made up of the top 3% of US-based creative talent, including graphic designers, illustrators, and more to create original designs or to refine AI-generated images into something amazing and capable of elevating your marketing campaign.
And with a dedicated Creative Director guiding your project, sourcing and managing your creative team, and making sure your assets are ready when you need them, the entire process can be easier and more efficient than you ever imagined.
Sound like a plan you can get behind? Then why not book your demo call today?
Let’s get you started with your 2-week, no-obligation trial and see how Designity can elevate your marketing collateral and help you crush your goals this year.
