Affinity Designer 1.6.1 – Vector graphic design software. March 2, 2018 Affinity Designer is an incredibly accurate vector illustrator that feels fast and at home in the hands of creative professionals.

In this post we have gathered 28 free Mac apps for graphic and web designers. Here they are:

GIMP

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition, and image authoring. It is a powerful piece of software with capabilities not found in any other free software product. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert-quality photo-retouching program, an online batch-processing system, a mass production image renderer, or an image-format converter. GIMP is modular, expandable, and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image-manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.
Overview and Download:GIMP Homepage.

Scribus

Scribus is an open-source program that brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix, MacOS X, OS/2 and Windows desktops with a combination of “press-ready” output and new approaches to page layout.Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation.
Overview:Scribus Homepage.
Download:Scribus Download Page.

JAlbum

JAlbum allows you to create nice-looking photo galleries for the Web. You simply select or drag and drop folders containing images or movie files onto JAlbum, and it creates thumbnails and HTML pages to publish your images as a gallery or as a picture slide show. The galleries are based on various templates, and their appearance can be further customized by advanced users. The application’s additional features include support for IPTC/EXIF data, style sheets, lossless image manipulation, pluggable image filters, and a built-in FTP/SFTP client.
Overview:JAlbum Homepage.
Download:JAlbum Download Page.

Paparazzi

Paparazzi! is a small utility for Mac OS X that makes screenshots of webpages.It’s written in Objective-C using the Cocoa API and the WebKit framework.
Overview:Paparazzi Homepage.
Download: Paparazzi Download Page.

Google SketchUp

Developed for the conceptual stages of design, SketchUp is powerful yet easy-to-learn 3D software. We think of it as “the pencil of digital design”. This award-winning product combines a simple yet robust tool set that streamlines and simplifies 3D design. SketchUp is used by professionals and consumers alike. It contains a unique interface that allows 3D forms to be created, viewed, and modified quickly and easily. The core of its simplicity is that you draw the edges of the desired model in 3D space, just as you would using a pencil and paper. SketchUp infers your design intent and automatically determines the nature of the lines and fill shapes to create 3D geometry.
Overview:Google SketchUp Homepage.
Download:Google SketchUp Download Page.

Linotype Explorer

Linotype Explorer is a great font management application for the Mac. You can use it to both install, manage and “test” fonts.
Overview:Linotype Explorer Homepage.
Download:Linotype Explorer Download Page.

FotoFlexer

FotoFlexer is the world’s most advanced online image editor. Completely free access to hundreds of fun and powerful features. Includes photo effects, graphics, shapes, seam carving, morphing and collages. Integrates with Facebook, MySpace, Photobucket, Flickr, and Google.
Overview: FotoFlexer Homepage.

Seashore

Based on Gimp, but doesn’t require X11.
Overview:Seashore Explorer Homepage.

Xee

Fast image viewer and image browser.
Download:XEE Download Page.

Lego Digital Designer

Lego Digital Designer, also known as LDD. With the free Digital Designer software you can build absolutely anything with virtual Lego bricks right on your computer. Then you can buy the real bricks to build your creation online in Lego Factory, or you can print out an inventory of bricks and take it to any Legoland theme park or LEGO Store. The latest version of LDD is 1.5 This version has increased stability and fixes a number of small bugs from version 1.4.
New in Version 2: Improved building experience, quicker brick selection, easier to connect bricks when building, new brick palette tool, more bricks, partly built models for easy start, new backgrounds, new UI, and more.
Overview: Lego Digital Designer Homepage.
Download: Lego Digital Designer Download Page.

Colorate

Colorate is a utility for creation of harmonized color palettes and color schemes, aimed from hobbyist to professional designers.Colorate fully automatizes the palette generation from a particular color swatch, selected from the standard Color Panel, dragged from other application or obtained from an image through the integrated Image Analyze feature.Once the palette has been generated, it is possible to add the new palette to the Library. Colorate can save and open as many Libraries as needed. Colorate also lets save the selected palettes as standard “.clr” system palette files. This feature allows use any of the generated palettes from hundreds of application that uses the Mac OS X standard Color Panel for color selection.
Overview: Colorate Homepage.
Download: Colorate Designer Download Page.

Front End Digital Media WorkShop

Front End Digital Media Workshop harnesses the power of QuickTime to bring you powerful batch based conversion of sound, video, and image files. Resize, resample, join, split, trim, basic edits, selective conversions via marked I/O points are some of the tools. All in an environment that provides powerful play back features including variable speed, slow motion, full screen playback and video to image frame capture. Batch lists can be saved and also used as play lists. Some of the dozens of supported formats include: MP4, MOV, AIFF, 3GP, 3GP2, WAV, AU, AVI (basic codecs), JPEG, PICT, PNG, PSD, BMP, and TIFF. QuickTime video filters and effects are also available.
Overview:Front End Digital Media WorkShop Homepage.
Download:Front End Digital Media WorkShop Download Page.

Autodesk Maya

Maya Personal Learning Edition (PLE) is a special version of Autodesk Maya software, which provides free access to Maya for non-commercial use. It gives 3D graphics and animation students, industry professionals, and those interested in breaking into the world of computer graphics an opportunity to explore most aspects of the Autodesk Maya Complete software in a non-commercial capacity.
Overview: Autodesk Maya Homepage.
Download: Autodesk Maya Download Page.

Graphisoft ArchiCAD

Graphisoft’s ArchiCAD 11 delivers new and enriched capabilities designed to help architects develop their concepts, compete for business more effectively and boost business efficiency. The enhancements reinforce ArchiCAD as an extraordinarily powerful design tool for architectural practices – large and small – worldwide.
Overview:Graphisoft ArchiCAD Homepage.
Download: Graphisoft ArchiCAD Download Page.

Simple CSS

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a way to specify the styles of fonts and other page elements on your sites. It makes it easier for you to update styles too, because when done right, you only need to make a single change to update the styles on multiple pages and elements. Another bonus is that your visitor’s browser needs to load less data per page, helping you reduce your data transfer usage while serving the same information. That means you’ll be able to accommodate more site visitors without having to spend more on data transfer. Your pages will also load faster. To help you work with CSS, we’ve created a tool called Simple CSS, which runs on Macs, Windows and Linux. Simple CSS allows you to create cascading style sheets from scratch, and/or modify existing ones, using a familiar point-and-click interface.
Overview:Simple CSS Homepage.
Download:Simple CSS Download Page.

Blender

Blender is the open-source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback. It is available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License. Version 2.44 offers numerous bug fixes. Version 2.46 includes cloth and fur simulation, physics caching and baking, shading, glossy reflection and refraction, raytraced soft shadows, improved rendering features, and more.
Overview:Blender Homepage.
Download:Blender Download Page.

HyperEngine-AV

HyperEngine-AV is a true multimedia editor that lets you combine seamlessly video, photos, sounds and text to create slide shows, family movies, business presentations, or your own feature films quickly and easily, with full DV quality.Media clips can be dragged and dropped, imported or captured in real time from a FireWire DV camera, then freely arranged in the workspace to make movies. Real-time, editable transitions are automatically created when video clips are dragged on top of each other and over a dozen video effects are available and can be applied to any video clip.Audio clips can be edited, arranged, stacked, and processed to generate stunning soundtracks. There is no track limit because . . . there are no tracks! With HyperEngine-AV there is simply no learning curve, you learn as you go, and you can get all the fun of creating any multimedia pieces without the hassle of dealing with tedious and counter-intuitive software interface.
Overview and Download:HyperEngine-AV Homepage.

POV-Ray

Bitmap Graphics Vs Vector Images

POV-Ray is a three-dimensional ray-tracing engine. It takes information you supply and simulates the way light interacts with the objects you’ve defined, creating stunning 3D pictures and animation
Overview:POV-Ray Homepage.
Download:POV-Ray Download Page.

Gnuplot

Gnuplot is a portable command-line driven interactive data and function plotting utility for UNIX, IBM OS/2, MS Windows, DOS, Macintosh, VMS, Atari and many other platforms. It was originally intended as to allow scientists and students to visualize mathematical functions and data. It does this job pretty well, but has grown to support many non-interactive uses, including web scripting and integration as a plotting engine for third-party applications like Octave. Gnuplot supports many different types of terminals: interactive screen terminals (with mouse and hotkey functionality), pen plotters (like hpgl), printers (including postscript and many color devices), and printings to output file as vectorial pseudo-devices like LaTeX, metafont, pdf, svg, or bitmap png. Gnuplot is easily extensible to include new devices.
Overview:Gnuplot Homepage.
Download:Gnuplot Download Page.

DAZ Studio

DAZ Studio is a feature rich 3D figure posing and animation tool that enables users of any skill level to easily create stunning digital imagery. Whether youre a 3D newbie or an avid 3D artist, you’ll find DAZ Studio is the perfect tool for designing unique digital art and animation with virtual people, animals, props, vehicles, backgrounds and more. Experience total creative freedom with DAZ Studio and express yourself in 3D like never before. Version 2.2.2.20 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.
Overview:DAZ Studio Homepage.
Download: DAZ Studio Download Page.

Bryce

Create breathtaking realistic 3D landscapes and animations with DAZ 3D Bryce 5.5. The easy user interface simplifies the design process for a novice or the seasoned professional. Start out building or importing a landscape as impressive as the Grand Canyon. Populate it with buildings, people or any other object you create or from the extensive DAZ 3D library. The Light Lab provides you robust control over your sunsets, moonlight nights or high-noon ambiance. Tree Lab allows you to plant your landscape like the gardens of Versailles. You’ll have to register your copy of Bryce 5.5 on the publishers web-site to gain access to your free Bryce serial number.
Overview and Download:Bryce Homepage.

Goldberg

Goldberg is a freeware image and movie viewer with image-editing capabilities and support for applying QuickTime and other effects.and its new version affering rotation capabilities, free zooming, and undo support.
Overview and Download:Goldberg Homepage.

Image Tricks

Image Tricks is an image editing application that allows you to easily edit and apply various effects and filters to your photos and images. This program allows modification of around 50 core image effects and filters, import over 20 image formats (TIFF, JPEG, GIF, PDF, EPS among them), export to TIFF, JPEG, PNG, and GIF formats, resize images, and iPhoto integration.
Overview and Download: Image Tricks Homepage.

Inkscape

Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or Xara X using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Supported SVG features include shapes, paths, text, markers, clones, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, patterns, and grouping. Inkscape also supports Creative Commons meta-data, node editing, layers, complex path operations, bitmap tracing, text-on-path, flowed text, direct XML editing, and more. It imports formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and others and exports PNG as well as multiple vector-based formats. Inkscape’s main goal is to create a powerful and convenient drawing tool fully compliant with XML, SVG, and CSS standards. We also aim to maintain a thriving user and developer community by using open, community-oriented development process, and by making sure Inkcape is easy to learn, to use, and to extend.
Overview:Inkscape Homepage.
Download:Inkscape Download Page.

NIH Image

NIH Image can acquire, display, edit, enhance, analyze, and animate images. It reads and writes TIFF, PICT, PICS, and MacPaint files, providing compatibility with many applications, including programs for scanning, processing, editing, publishing, and analyzing images. NIH Image supports many standard image-processing functions, such as contrast enhancement, density profiling, smoothing, sharpening, edge detection, median filtering, and spatial convolution with user-defined kernels. NIH Image can be used to measure area, mean, centroid, and perimeter. It also performs automated particle analysis and provides tools for measuring path lengths and angles. Spatial calibration is supported to provide real-world area and length measurements. Version 1.62 fixes bugs and improves compatibility with PowerPC machines.
Overview:NIH Image Homepage.
Download:NIH Image Download Page.

Vector Vs Bitmap Image

Comipro Plus

Comipro Plus is a cartoon production software. You can produce the cartoon work with the kind of feeling which compiles the document with the word processor as the material using the picture and the photograph. Version 4.0.20 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.
Overview:Comipro Plus Homepage.

Scratch

Designed for children, this freeware multimedia programming tool makes creating animated stories, video games and interactive artwork a snap. Scratch uses a simple graphical interface that lets users put together multimedia programs without any programming knowledge.
Overview:Scratch Homepage.
Download:Scratch Download Page.

iPhoto

Whether you have twenty or twenty thousand digital photos, iPhoto 4 keeps track of them all, automatically organizing them so you can find them fast. Lightning fast. Easy to use, iPhoto puts you in charge of your photographs-helping you import them, organize them into albums, enhance their appearance, as well as, share them in print, via email, over the web and in stunning coffee-table books.
This update addresses several issues with using multiple text rules in Smart Albums and it also eliminates some problems with creating iPhoto books in the German and Dutch languages. Additionally, 4.0.3 keeps users informed about new version of iPhoto that have become available.
Overview and Download:iPhoto Homepage.

Well thats it, I hope I haven’t missed any. (Let me know if I have).

So you can’t afford the high price tags that come with the paid t-shirt design software?

And now, you’re looking for completely free software or app that has plenty of helpful tools and features to help you come up with professional t-shirt designs for your clients, brand, sports team, family, friends, etc.?

If yes, we’ve got your back!

Below, we have compiled the ultimate list of the 11 best 100% FREE to use apps and software you can use to come up with unique tee designs without spending a cent.

11 FREE T-shirt Design Apps and Software:

1. Inkscape

Compatibility: Linux, macOS, Windows.

This is one of the best free to use tee design apps you can use today if you don’t have the cash for the premium apps.

Despite being an open-source vector-based design app, this tool has the power and flexibility of the paid-for tools.

The fact that this software isn’t limited to vector images means you can use it to work on a wide variety of projects. It presents you with everything you need to create as well as edit your tee graphics.

Some of the top features you’ll get from this software include shape tools, pencil tool, calligraphy tool, pen tool, color tools, font and text editing, color tools, and multiple layers.

With Inkscape, you can turn existing bitmap images into vector images (using the tracing function), scale up/down your images, and export it in suitable formats for screen-printing.

The app also provides you with raster image formats like .png and .jpg.

Although this app comes with no t-shirt templates or YouTube tutorials, experienced previous designers have taken it upon themselves to provide you with free guides (like the one below). This makes the Inkscape learning curve easier for you.

2. GIMP

Compatibility: GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac OS, and other operating systems.

GIMP is another popular software for a t-shirt design that allows you to create professional-looking designs without spending hefty amounts of cash.

Best Macos Vector And Bitmap Graphic Apps Downloads

The open-source software has been around for more than two decades. It has always been regarded as the best free alternative to Photoshop (or the granddaddy of free photo editing and graphic design) by millions of users.

For your tee design needs, this software presents you with plenty of customizable tools, including texts, brushes, arts, etc., to help you quickly come up with fully customized t-shirts.

Just like the paid-for, this app also provides you with free templates and YouTube tutorials for first-time users.

Note that GIMP undergoes regular updating by its team of volunteers to ensure it continues solving your design needs for free.

Best Macos Vector And Bitmap Graphic Apps Windows 10

3. Custom Ink

Compatibility: in-browser designer.

This is an in-browser design, specially made for t-shirts. It’s 100% free to use. It comes with a user-friendly interface, making it one of the easiest to use apps.

When you get down to create your designs, you’ll enjoy using hundreds of images that come with Custom Ink. Keep in mind that these images are organized into categories like animals, nature, tech, people, occupation, music, transportation, etc., so you’ll likely find the image that matches your design needs.

Or you can simply upload your own design with just a click of a button.

It also lets you easily add numbers and names to your t-shirts. This will come in handy when you want to customize tees for your sports team or project group.

Once you’re done creating your designs, this app also lets you easily share them with your friends.

And if you want to order a t-shirt with your customized design, Custom Ink lets you do so. You just create your own design, place an order, and they’ll deliver the tee to your doorstep.

4. Smart Shirt Designer

Compatibility: macOS, Windows, Linux.

If you’re looking for a free to use tee design app for your football jersey design project, you just found the Smart Shirt Designer!

This designer software comes specially designed to help you come up with professional-looking football jerseys, which explains why it comes stocked with a huge list of brand logos (including Adidas, Nike, etc.), shirt designs, and color designs. These free designs will let you come up with your own patterns for your tees.

It lets you create the front as well as back portions of your t-shirts.

Just like the premium software, this designer also gives you the option of using their free patterns or draw and design your own patterns…or upload your own images and logos.

The software will then save your complete design in its own supported format. But it allows you to export the design in popular formats such as png, jpg, and gif formats.

5. Get Paint​

Compatibility: Windows.

This is another free to download and use image and photo editing software. It also comes with a pretty intuitive and innovative user interface, which makes it quite easy to figure out for those using it for the first time.

Unlike most of the other t-shirt designs apps and software out there, this app takes your design work higher by making your designs look more realistic.

In other words, it distorts and applies your design, logo, text, etc. based upon the t-shirt surface, just like the final product will look like.

The fact that this software presents you with an ‘undo’ function means you’ll not have to worry about making errors during the design process as you can always erase them.

And oh! Don’t forget that this app has an ever-growing online community, which means you’ll enjoy plenty of help, support, forums, and tutorials easily.

6. Fat Paint

Compatibility: online design software

This is another excellent, free to use online design software, so you don’t have to download or install anything to start using it. Just make sure you have adobe flash installed on your browser.

The free software comes with plenty of helpful design functions to help you come up with stunning t-shirts. These include up to 900 fonts, thousands of vector clip arts, and even 3D templates, which are sure to make your t-shirt come alive!

You can also upload your own photographs and images, and then use FatPaint to crop or resize them according to your requirements. You can also easily combine your designs with other images and texts.

The only problem you’ll experience when using this software is the advertisements that keep popping up. If you find these ads annoying, you can simply subscribe to the pro version for ad-free design experience.

7. Krita

Compatibility: Windows, Mac, and Linux

Krita also made it to our list of the best free t-shirt design apps. It’s an image and painting app that offers excellent competition for commercial apps such as Photoshop.

One of the key features you’ll love in this app revolves around the different brush settings. You can easily change these settings using toolbar controls to meet your design needs. You can easily adjust aspects like size, color, blending mode, and opacity.

Just like Photoshop, Krita also allows you to create shapes using paths!

If you want to use pre-made images, then this app lets you easily import it by dragging them onto the canvas. The app has plenty of filters that you can apply to your pictures or layers to make them look even more amazing.

Mark you, Krita was developed by like-minded designers who have even prepared easy-to-follow tutorials to make it easy to use for everyone.

Imagine getting all these design editing features and functions without paying a dime? This is precisely why Krita makes our list of the best cost-free platforms for you!

8. Flash T-shirt Design Software

If you want to start your own t-shirt printing company but don’t have the money to invest in high-end software like Photoshop, then this design software will be a great alternative.

The free to use features a user-friendly interface plus a bunch of high-quality features to enable you to come up with professional-looking t-shirt designs for your clients.

When you access the Flash interface, you’ll be thrilled by the multiple fonts, clipart, and colors that you can use to make t-shirt designs of your liking. The vector clip arts, in particular, will match your t-shirt colors…and you can always change the colors to suit your needs.

9. Free-T-shirt Maker

If you’re still looking for an easy-to-use free t-shirt design too, this software will also make an excellent choice.

It has such a simple and interactive interface that you even a beginner will quickly get the hang of it. You’ll easily figure out what button or control does what within a few minutes of playing with the interface.

The t-shirt maker is generous with hundreds of clip arts classified into animals, education, abstracts, flower, heart, sports, technology, and more. The software lets you modify these clip arts, resize, and even rotate them to meet your unique design needs.

As with the other t-shirt designs apps and software, this free to use tool also lets you import your own images to create t-shirt designs of your choice.

10. Tee Designer Master

Compatibility: online-based software

Here comes another cool t-shirt design software you can trust to meet your t-shirt design solutions. Being an online-based app, you don’t need to do any downloading or installation to start using it.

You directly run in on your browser, which is easy as ABC.

This is the perfect software for those who wish to design t-shirts as well as other garments like a hoodie.

Despite being a FREE software, it lets you design both the front and back sides of your t-shirt. And in the preview option, it shows you both sides of your t-shirts together.

Customizing your designs and artwork has never been easier, thanks to the multiple editing tools this software provides you with. These include the paintbrush to let you change your t-shirt color, ability to add texts, logos, images, etc. to your design.

Its library stocks over 20 different types of images that you can use in your design work. Alternatively, you can upload your own images from your PC.

11. Alma mater Store

Compatibility: online-based tool

Last but not least, we have this Alma mater store online tool. Like all the other software featured on this list, this one too lets you come up with awesome t-shirt designs.

The website lets you easily create your own designs, save them, and share them with your friends without spending a penny.

Alternatively, they can print the t-shirt for you and send it to you if you chose this option. They offer you all the possible shirt sizes to help you chose one that suits you best.

You’ll enjoy using the many included tools like the text, brush, art, name, note, number, and many more to help you come up with truly unique designs.

What’s more, the tool will let you easily create design print on the back, front, and sleeves of your t-shirt.

Pro TIP: Take Advantage of FREE trials!

If you want to experience the powerful t-shirt design that comes with industry-leading software and apps, you can take advantage of the free trials. These will give you enough time to come up with t-shirt designs without spending a dime.

For instance, you can take advantage of the Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, both of which are products of Adobe​ a leading industry standard for image editing. Both software offers you a 7-day free trial, which is more than enough time for completing quick t-shirt design jobs.

Verdict

See, you don’t need to pay those large sums of money to get a professional-looking t-shirt design. In this list, we have just outlined some of the best free t-shirt design software and apps that you can use to come up with customized t-shirts for your clients, group project, sports team, etc.

All the tools we have features on this list are 100% FREE to use — no subscript need. You simply download/install them and get down to making your customized t-shirt prints.

Despite being free to use, the tools come with powerful features that you’ll find in the paid software as well, meaning they’ll help you create professional-looking t-shirt designs.

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