Top 5 creative tools for non-creatives

I've had a blast running a design agency for nearly 8 years, and in the last few years one thing is becoming really obvious to me: Businesses are starting to take design much more seriously and many use it to gain an edge over competition in their sector. This is great news if you are a designer but let's be real, there are (and there always will be) way more non-creatives in the business world than there are designers.

So the question is: 'If we all have a new found love and appreciation for design, but we aren't designers ourselves, don't have access to designers, or any budget to use designers, how can we create amazing-looking documents that make us look like we have the whole of Saatchi & Saatchi behind us?'

Here is my list of the top 5 creative tools I think everyone in business should make use of:

FOR EVERYTHING - CANVA

If you need to create lots of different materials quickly and aren't joined at the hip to a designer, www.canva.com will be an incredible resource for you and your business.

A quick screenshot from my own Canva account above gives you a glimpse of what's possible to create. And what makes this tool so amazing is that whether you are creating a poster or a presentation, it comes loaded with hundreds of different templates that magically add the great design you need.

Imagine it as your virtual designer. You add the content and it makes everything look fantastic. Plus you can also go in and easily adjust the design should you feel like flexing those creative muscles.

There are different payment plans available - plus a business package - that enables you to add your own branding, which then gets applied to any templates you chose.

If you fancy learning how to be more creative, there is also a Design School you can use at https://designschool.canva.com/

FOR PRESENTING - PREZI

Of course, I had to mention www.prezi.com. If you're looking to impress in your next pitch with a more creative presentation, then Prezi is definitely the fastest and easiest way to do so. Plus there are many other benefits such as a more visually impelling presentation and a more engaged audience.

The screenshot above shows just a few of the many free templates available inside the Prezi software. These are fantastic time-savers and, if you can find one that links to the overall message of your talk, then you'll definitely be remembered and make an impact on your audience.

Like most of the tools in this article there is a free trial option and then paid options at various levels which offer a little more functionality.

To see an amazing example of what is possible with Prezi you can check out this design we made recently for National Trust.

Many people report struggling with the learning curve of Prezi, but in my experience delivering Prezi training for nearly a decade now these difficulties merely come down to the fact that when people think Presentations, they think in a linear flow of slides. Prezi is very different so I'd recommend going into it with an open mind and checking out some examples before you get started. It isn't PowerPoint so approaching it with that mindset will always slow down your learning. It is easy to pick up the basics and get started in just a few hours of training.

FOR SOCIAL MEDIA - ADOBE SPARK

As a busy small business owner, this is one of my most used creative tools. Even though I am extremely well versed in all of the Adobe Packages such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, I use Spark more than anything else because of its quickness and ease of use. I also use Spark exclusively from my iPhone and opposite is a screenshot of some of the social media thumbnails I've created with it.

Spark comes with a huge library of templates, images, and icons, plus you can also input your own branding and logo so that everything you make is consistent.

It can be used for free (more info here) although like other tools you benefit from many more features once a paid license is acquired.

FOR ICONS - NOUN PROJECT

www.thenounproject.com has been around for a few years now but is still relatively unknown amongst 'non-creatives'. It offers a library of over 2 million curated icons that can be dropped into a whole range of Microsoft, Google, and Adobe packages.

Imagine you're writing a report about the impact Donald Trump is having on politics in the US. Sure you could go and grab photographs online and use them in the report, but why not use an interesting looking icon instead. Noun Project has you covered!

You can then decide what colour you'd like the icon to be, drag and drop it onto your document, and resize it to your heart's content.

Our design team at The Prezenter are extremely capable of making icons from scratch, but even they will use Noun Project to save time on a project if they need to.

You can use this tool in a limited way for free, but at just $39.99 per year, it's worth its weight in gold.

FOR IMAGE EDITING - REMOVE BACKGROUND

As a non-creative, there are lots of things you'll want to do with imagery but just won't have the time or knowhow. One of the biggest questions I've always been asked in my training sessions is 'How do I remove the background from an image'.

Of course, if you've spent hours tediously teaching yourself Adobe Photoshop you'll know the answer to this but you aren't trying to become a Graphic Designer, so here's an amazing new tool for doing just that.

Remove Background is a free online tool that (in my opinion) must use actual magic to do what it does. It's fantastically accurate and all you have to do is upload an image that you'd like to remove the background from.

As you can see from the example above, remove.bg has taken out the blue wall from behind our happy chappy and I can ow download that image in .png format which retains the transparent background. That means you can build really nice visuals in your presentations or for your social media posts by combining images together and avoiding lots of ugly white rectangles. It's one of my favourite new tools and helps me save a tonne of time. Go try it out.

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

If any of these exciting tools has sparked your interest and you'd like to know more, please reach out to me directly via Linkedin or calling our office number from www.theprezenter.com I'd be more than happy to help you explore how you could use and benefit from any or all of the above tools.

And please comment below, and SHARE this post. Let's make the business world a more creative place to be.